Spoiler Alert:
One of my favourite summer films this past year is without question Mona Fastvold’s historical drama film The World to Come. Starring long time favourite actresses Katherine Waterston and Vanessa Kirby.
It’s difficult to put into words what I liked so much about this film. The fantastic performances from the cast, the beautiful shots of a frontier homestead, the diary title cards (Gosh Damn! I’m a sucker for some title cards in a film) and the otherwise interesting storytelling from the perspective of Abigail.
But what really spoke to me in this film was simply the bleakness of it all. It’s a slow burning picture with a tangible relationship to its environment, enough to plant the audience in its cold and unpleasant landscape. The forbidden relationship of the storyline is frequently interrupted to deal with poultry that has frozen to death or the lingering pain and torment Abigail and her husband both feel from the loss of their daughter Nellie. The film is bleak from beginning to end to match the life the characters live, It isn’t just a film about love between two housewives but a study of survival under conditions that we wouldn’t like to think about today.
The real bleakness of the film however is in the evil of Tallie’s husband Finney. Christopher Abbott successfully embodies any given evil husband in this work, he is as much responsible for a feeling of confinement as his cruelty cannot be written of as “A man of the time” but as an openly reprehensible and terrible man who boasts about killing his dog and makes little effort to hide his abusive treatment of his wife. He is in complete contrast to Dyer who while is unromantic and at times jealous, does his best to treat his wife well, going so far as to travel with her in an attempt to rescue Tallie, a woman for whom he has no real care for, but he sees the importance in ensuring his wife is safe and is not apologetic to the evils of Finney.
The love story is a tense one, its built up over a long time as both women come to terms with their emotions which would have been incredibly taboo in their time. But it pays off when they do admit their feelings for one another in an emotional scene. However this is not without its difficulties as they both have to contend with their husbands one of whom is frequently close to catching them and the other a man who’s actions will prove fatal.
Abigail comments in her diary of the existence of women in her time, denied lives of their own to serve their husbands and to have children. She comments on her own husband’s lack of romance as he never writes about her in his ledger and is often more concerned with farm affairs than his wife. To her Tallie does not just represent an alternative romance, but instead a different kind of life where she will be respected and considered an equal, Tallie’s gift of an Atlas is a wholly romantic one because it means so much to Abigail and is an example of respect for her intelligence and desire to learn.
The murder of Tallie by her husband which the audience knows will go unpunished is a damning indictment of its time and the last flame of hope in Abigail’s life, who’s only real safety from the depths of despair is now is in her imagination. The World to Come could be a hopeful title in her confidence that she will see both her lover and her daughter again, but that doesn’t detract from the true tragedy of the time in that The World to Come is in fact their only option as she was born into a life that has already taken away anything that was meaningful to her.
Please give this film a watch! It’s fantastic!
T H E N A I V E F I L M M A K E R 