Most of the the movies and books that I write about, it's because I like them. That gets me excited to talk about them. There are exceptions of course, like my most famous post, "Fog Blog," an evisceration of the 2005 remake of The Fog, but even that was informed by my deep fondness for the 1980 original. As Abed said in Community, I like liking things. Sometimes, though, I develop a kind of fascination with the way a movie goes wrong.
With The Curse of La Llorona, it's an example of hope and disappointment. Now, I am always in the mood for a ‘70s period piece, and I'd like to see more movies based on the rich tradition of Mexican-American folklore, a part of our national heritage.
La Llorona, the Crying Woman who appears in various Latin American cultures, is a particularly intriguing supernatural being. The image of a mother who kills her own children recurs throughout the world, with a primal fear in the idea of a mother hurting her children. It appears in the Greek myths, and in the Icelandic Saga of the Volsungs, and La Llorona brings the story into the realm of hauntings.
Where Medea is famous for her rage, the “Crying Woman” is defined by her remorse for her actions, which makes it easier to empathize with her pain. She's overcome with a grief that survives long after her own death. In real life, most women who commit this crime do so under duress, suffering tremendous stresses and/or psychotic breaks, so La Llorona helps to represent those who commit evil deeds out of their own pain, creating cycles of violence and suffering.
As a horror movie archetype, the crying woman is disturbing and unsettling, especially when the weeping is audible, but you can’t see the source.
Dread Central has covered the fact this film is a lost opportunity to present the Mexican legend and Latinx culture, which certainly could have enriched the film, so you can read that instead of hearing a white lady talk about it. If we must have a white lead in deference to the Hollywood system, Linda Cardellini’s likeable, relatable presence is a solid anchor for a tale of supernatural wackiness.
What interests me is how the first half of the film really seems like it has something to say about motherhood and grief, but fizzles out into something generic. Cardellini's widowed working mom, an L.A. social worker, has more in common with the problems of her marginalized clients than she does with the establishment she represents. She’s struggling, just like Patricia, a woman with truant kids (played by Patricia Velásquez from The Mummy movies, significantly de-glamorized), is also struggling
Cardellini’s compassionate Anna genuinely wants to help the family, but she’s still the agent of a bureaucratic system and has to follow their rules. She also has the false confidence that comes with her authority, reassuring the frightened children that “whatever’s happening, we can take care of it,” when she has no idea of what’s happening. If she really listened to them or their mother, or took her fears seriously, her own family would avoid danger down the line. She can’t see that what endangers this poor family can also endanger her own, in the large house with a pool.
Once the curse follows her home, and weird things start happening, they behave like the stereotype of white American middle class life: the kids don’t tell their mom what they’ve experienced, and she doesn’t
tell them, for a long time. The kids say, “I fell;” she says, “It’s
nothing.” If they all suffer in silence, they can’t get to the bottom of
what’s happening. The desire to protect each other with silence, and to deal with
things individually, hampers their ability to survive.
I really wanted Anna to understand her connection with Patricia, and how quickly and easily the system she worked for would turn on her. When she takes her children to the doctor after a supernatural attack, her own social services office is immediately called.
In a twist on her earlier words, her dead husband’s partner, who had just been over for dinner as a friend, is terse with her, saying “Whatever’s going on here, fix
it.” That’s the extent of the advice or support she gets. Like it’s that simple!
Unfortunately, none of this potential is developed. Almost an hour in, the crazy starts, and it doesn’t really let up. Then it’s a lot of door slamming and people getting thrown around the room, in as generic a way possible. Even a visit to a cool botanica doesn't really help.
There’s a moment near the end where the ghost stops and looks at the children in her original human form. The film belatedly seems to remember that its monster was originally motivated by pain, who had acted without knowing what she was doing, and is now mad with her grief. But then there's an irritating fake-out. Nope! She’s just demonic, and ends up stopped by the power of cliché.
The film spans 300 years, starting in Mexico, 1673, and quickly transitioning to 1973 and the strains of “Superfly.” One big positive: the Los Angeles setting is beautifully portrayed, with gorgeous cityscapes and lighting in nighttime scenes that my screenshots can't do justice to. Sorry!
So yes, I wrote this whole thing to think through why I was so disappointed in this film. It looks good, it's competently made, and it's about things I'm intrinsically interested in. I really wanted to like it, but I ended up sighing a lot. Sometimes the desire to play it safe, to stick with the formula, works against a film in both the short and long terms. The movie came and went, and is rarely mentioned now. If it had embraced its Mexican-American lineage, or stuck with its more ambiguous themes, it might have had a longer shelf life. A lot of worse films have!
