In Julia Max’s supernatural drama The Surrender, a woman and her mother deal with the grief of losing a loved one and try to bring him back; now streaming on Shudder.
The trouble of dealing with grief is that everyone handles it in a variety of ways. What is best for you might not be the same as your mother. One person may shut down or become an angry wreck. Others might try to resurrect the dead in an arcane ceremony. For Megan, the daughter of the recently passed Robert, it’s the former. For Barbara, his wife, the latter. The conflict of the two, the secrets revealed with sickness and death, and how to process it all, is the crux of The Surrender.
The Surrender is writer-director Julia Max’s first feature after several shorts, and the transition to full length has some stumbles, but there is a skill to the writing and direction. She has something to say, it feels very personal. Max pulls great performances from Colby Minifie, best known from The Boys, and Kate Burton, genre fans will recognize her from Big Trouble in Little China, as the mother and daughter, respectively. Anyone who has gone through the loss of a parent will be able to draw empathy. Doubly so if you hired a necromancer to bring them back. What do you mean that’s not normal?
However, The Surrender is a great 35-minute short film stuck within a 96-minute movie. There is a solid dramatic heft, and the film eventually goes into interesting places. There is a solid exploration of grief, of family histories and resentments, and how we show and deal with it all. The occult rituals and arcane weirdness around this particular family’s reaction to loss and grief are interesting and very well done, with a great sense of look and design.
Unfortunately, the lead-up to the mystic methods of return is often a repetitive slog of watching unlikeable characters bicker and battle. Mom Barbara is the “I don’t know about that, but I‘m gonna do what I want” sort of boomer, a person who will not listen to anyone else’s reason and evidence, ignoring others’ needs and feelings. On the other side is the daughter Megan, quick to anger at her mother, just as much not listening, and jumping to conclusions. Perhaps as a millennial with boomer parents myself, this interplay is a frustrating base to watch on film. Or maybe it becomes a round-and-round as the film inches closer to where we know it’s going. As noted above, both actors are fantastic. I also don’t need a character to be likable to be interesting, but the repetitive nature of their relationship becomes grating.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind when a film inches towards the climax. I’m not a “I need the film to run full speed into the horror at the start” sort. (Sinners love!) The Surrender spends this time with mom saying, “I’m going to do the thing,” and daughter replying, ”You’re crazy. Don’t do the thing. I’m also going to pout and scream.” What is interesting is that “the thing” is Mom using an occult ritual to try to raise the father from the grave by using a creepy, Alan Moore-looking necromancer.
Exploring grief through a supernatural setting and ritual can be a well-done metaphor. The black hole of despair that is Hereditary and the underseen two-hander Dark Song are great examples. The Surrender is nowhere near as strong as either, coming out like a stretched-out short combining the two.
There are vistetages of a bigger story and history – who mom and dad really were, how a child may see a parent differne than the spouse, the love we push down under the alyers of ugly or repressive history and how to tear those layers away to remind yourself why you love your mom. These are fanatsic, truthly concept to explore but get lost under the mess and bickering.
For all my complaints, separate from the start, the séance – to simplify – and the results are very well done. The world of the occult and the underworld (to show the hand a bit, another darker dimension is involved) is effective, creative, and sometimes scary.
It’s this section that redeems many of the issues of the first half. From the creepiness of Not-Alan-Moore, the methods and mysteries of the ritual, it has a great quality of “I’m into what’s going to happen. Where it goes has energy and design. Surprises abound, and Max creates a compelling hellscape and hones in on the themes flittered about in the lead-up. The various “surrenders” of the title (actions done to show you’re fully into the ritual) are brutal and shocking.
The Surrender, written and directed by Julia Max, is uneven, with a great back half if you can get past repetitive, sometimes annoying, character moments. The performances of the leads are fantastic, and the look is unnerving. Stick through the film and be rewarded.