Director Michelle Bossy wastes no time in grabbing our attention and keeping us riveted to the screen with her sophomore feature directorial, the psychological thriller NOBODY’S HOME. A potboiler from beginning to end and working with a taut script by Louisa Erlich, Bossy excels with character development and pacing, keeping us on our toes with ambiguity and intrigue, building to a crescendo and then just when we think we’ve seen it all, turns on a dime and sends our heads spinning with new reveals and potential truths.
At first blush, we sense that something “isn’t quite right” with Theodora and Luca. Friends? Lovers? The tension between them in the car as Theodora is anxiously driving while repeatedly looking over her shoulder is palpable and so thick you could cut it with a knife. Luca is edgy and nervous and appears off-balance with his emotions. Theodora is uneven in her dynamic with Luca. One minute she’s stone cold yet appears on the verge of explosive anger. The next, sweetly telling him to relax and sleep….after giving him some kind of pills to “take the edge off”. As we discover, both were patients at a psychiatric hospital. Luca was released but Theodora escaped and hit the road with him. Why each was being treated is unknown…for now.
Hours later, it’s nighttime and Theodora pulls up to a cabin in the woods. The lights are on but it appears that nobody’s home. She leaves a sleeping Luca in the car and enters the woodland home. Nicely apportioned, she makes her way through the house until she reaches a bedroom where she discovers a woman dead, lying in a pool of blood.
While Theodora is in the cabin, our attention is switched to Angelica and Jeremy who are out in the woods in pitch-black darkness, seemingly lost, and definitely high on acid. Deeming it too far to make their way back to Angie’s family cabin, they stumble upon the same cabin as Theodora and Luca. According to Angie, it belongs to her friends Alice and Carl.
In the interim, Theodora has managed to get Luca into the cabin. He is disoriented and confused, chunks of time are missing. And then he realizes this was his childhood summer home; a home where something unspeakable happened. He becomes even more upset when Theodora tells him that he killed the woman in the bedroom and just doesn’t remember it. Is she telling the truth? Did he kill that woman?
In a panic, Luca hears knocking at the door. On opening the door, he and Theodora are met with Angelica and Jeremy seeking refuge while they come down off their high. Theodora very coolly lies, telling the couple that she is friends of the homeowners and was invited over. It doesn’t take long before the two couples “face off” with Theodora suspicious of Angelica and Jeremy and Angelica suspicious of Theodora, as well as Theodora trying to not only manipulate and control the situation and each individual but test Luca’s loyalty to her.
What ensues is a dangerous and deadly psychological cat-and-mouse game when push comes to shove and the darkness within each starts to bubble to the surface.
Essentially a four-handed ensemble with writer Louisa Erlich also starring as Theodora, Julio Lourido as Luca, Baize Buzan as Angelica, and Ruffin Prentiss as Jeremy, each demonstrates their skills and strengths as each embodies the psyche of their respective characters. But it’s Erlich who sets the tone and grabs our attention as master manipulator, both on the page and in her performance as Theodora. Emotionally rapier, she is chilling. While the audience is able to see the ever-increasing unreliability of Theodora as a truth-teller in this tale, it falls to Buzan’s Angelica to start putting the pieces together through her acid-induced haze. Erlich and Buzan going toe-to-toe trying to out-psyche and out-maneuver the other is a masterful dance.
A breakout role for Lourido, as Luca he brings the heart to NOBODY’S HOME. There is an innocence that cries out for understanding and love while Luca trembles in fear at his own past. It’s a very delicate emotional balancing act and Lourido walks that tightrope beautifully. We feel Luca’s need for love and his fear that Theodora will leave him if he doesn’t do exactly as she says. On the flip side, the ease and comfort (and wonderful chemistry) that we see between Luca and Angelica is heartwarming, and quite honestly, you may find yourself hoping Luca walks away from Theodora and Angelica from Jeremy.
And speaking of Jeremy, Ruffin Prentiss is a delight, providing acid-induced humor that allows for some respites so the overall pot doesn’t boil over too soon. Probably known best for his episodic television appearances (most notably “Seal Team”), it’s nice to see him in a feature where he gets a chance to stretch his talents and his character has a chance to develop more fully.
Cinematographer Seth Fuller makes wonderful use of the one location cabin. Camera has a fluidity to it as it moves from person to person while making good use of static mid-shots to showcase the group. ECUs are almost non-existent so when we do see them, they pack a punch. Camera dutching is minimal, essentially keeping everyone on a metaphoric level playing field. One fire pit night scene is a powerful stunner as negative space comes into play speaking to the “secrets” and “untruths” of everyone. And night scenes with a blazing fire always look spectacular as the tension heats up. Some nice acid-infused visual effects by Gavin Carlton build upon Fuller’s work.
Building tension is never an easy thing to do, but editors Sarah E. Williams and Lenny Emery find the beats and keep us on knuckle-clenching tenterhooks, delivering a well-paced film that celebrates ambiguity, manipulation, and misleading “truths” that keep us guessing until the final moment of the film as to whom each of these individuals really is behind their public facade.
Director – Michelle Bossy
Writer – Louisa Erlich
Cast – Louisa Erlich, Julio Lourido, Baize Buzan, Ruffin Prentiss
by debbie lynn elias, 11/24/2023
NOBODY’S HOME has its world premiere at Dances With Films on December 3rd, 2023, at Regal Union Square on Broadway in New York.
