On Paper, Home Bodies Is Brilliant [...] But Unfortunately, the Execution Didn’t Quite Work.
Written by Mariane Tremblay
Written by Marcus Sullivan (Whitdrawn) and Adrian Murray (Retrograde) and directed by Casey Walker (A Little Bit Zombie), Home Bodies follows two children, Red (Emma Ho, Code 8) and Blue (Ian Ho, A Simple Favor), who have been raised in complete isolation by an automated house. Yes, you read that right: it’s just two children living in a house in the middle of nowhere, with no one else around them. The only real connection they have to the outside world — or anything other than each other — is a square light with an animated voice behind a locked door that they both call "Papa."
The movie opens with both babies crying in their red and blue boxes in the living room, before quickly cutting to them waking up in their beds as full-grown children. Everything around them is [mostly] red and blue, reflecting what belongs to whom and the very specific world they’ve grown up in. But the house they live in doesn’t really feel like a house. Aside from the main living spaces — their bedroom, the living room, the kitchen, and the bathroom, which all look like they could have been pulled straight out of an ’80s home — the hallways and other rooms make it feel more like a bunker or something of the sort. And yet, Red and Blue seem to have everything they could possibly need.
Every day, they receive a new VHS tape of a puppet show called "The Barn" to watch; the food is automatically restocked whenever the fridge’s inventory gets low; the trash disappears when they put it in the cellar and ask for it; they have coloured pencils, toys, walkie-talkies, and pretty much everything else two kids could need to keep themselves occupied. They have everything they need to survive on their own.
But is it enough?
On their 42nd Noel — a holiday that looks like Christmas — Red and Blue are gifted Pal (Ess Hödlmoser, Code 8), an androgynous being from the outside world. But, unsurprisingly, Pal completely disrupts the peaceful, incredibly routine life the two children have built for themselves under the rules "Papa" has dictated their whole life — it is hard to maintain your perfectly isolated little world when you suddenly have a whole new person thrown into the mix. Pal ultimately brings something Red and Blue have never really had before: another perspective, another living presence, and, perhaps most importantly, a reminder that there might be something else beyond the four walls they’ve always known.
On paper, Home Bodies is brilliant. It is a clever interpretation of a dystopian future that could very well become a reality (or partially reality) in the near or not-so-distant future. The idea of children being raised in complete isolation by an automated home, knowing nothing but the routines and rules they’ve been given, is really cool and intriguing when you think about it. Add a mysterious companion from the outside world into the mix, and you have a premise that had me really intrigued from the start.
But unfortunately, the execution didn’t quite work for me.
The movie is long and repetitive, although I understand that their life pretty much is. They’re living in this incredibly controlled environment where every day feels the same, so the repetition does make sense within the story. I actually think that’s an interesting choice because it puts us in their shoes and makes us experience just how monotonous their existence is. But there’s a difference between intentionally making a movie feel repetitive and making the viewing experience feel repetitive, and Home Bodies unfortunately fell into the latter for me. Their life may be monotonous, but there's nothing in their routine to make it entertaining enough for the viewer. I found myself getting increasingly disconnected from it as it went on, waiting for something to really pull me back in. But alas.
Walker’s direction is definitely one of the highlights for me. There are some really interesting camera movements and visual choices throughout, and I really liked the way the house and its strange environment are presented. There’s a very specific feeling to the world he creates, and I think the visual side of Home Bodies does a great job of making this isolated house feel both familiar and completely unsettling. I just wish I had connected with the story as much as I did with what the team was doing behind the camera.
And that’s without mentioning how predictable it is. I could see so much of it coming, which made it even more frustrating when the movie ultimately didn’t give us any real answers. And listen, I don’t think every movie needs to explain everything to us. I actually love when movies leave certain things open to interpretation and trust the audience to figure things out for themselves. But Home Bodies could have benefited from giving us at least a little more to work with.
There were so many questions I had by the end, and instead of making me want to keep thinking about the movie, I was mostly just wondering why we never got more explanations. The movie clearly has something to say about isolation, human connection, routine, and potentially even the ways technology could shape our lives in the future, but I never felt like it fully explored those ideas in a way that landed for me. It introduces so many intriguing elements that I kept waiting for them to come together, and they just never quite did.
There’s a really interesting idea at the heart of Home Bodies, and I genuinely think there’s a great movie somewhere in there. The premise is interesting enough, Walker’s direction has some really great moments, and the world he creates is definitely one I wanted to know more about. I just wish it had something to make us feel more connected to it — the premise had me so much more excited than the actual film ended up making me feel.
Home Bodies had its world premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival on July 23.
Photo: Fantasia International Film Festival
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