Sundance Film Review: You Won’t Be Alone

Sundance Film Review: You Won’t Be Alone
Director: Goran Stolevski 

Screen Australia and Causeway FIlms
Premieres: 01.22 8:45 p.m. MST

Life’s a witch, and then you die. That, in a nutshell, seems to be the overall message of You Won’t Be Alone, the debut feature from writer-director Goran Stolveski, though he does also seem to think there’s a lot sex and animal blood to be had enjoyed along the way.

You Won’t Be Alone takes place in 19th-century Macedonia and tells the sad tale of a young girl who is kidnapped by “Wolf Eateress” Anamaria Marinca (Europa Report) who transforms the girl into a witch. The young witch is curious to learn about life as a human, and when she actually kills a peasant, Basilka (Noomi Rapace, Lamb), in a small village, the witch finds that she’s now inhabiting the dead woman’s body. 

The young witch is enthralled by both the experience of being in human form and by the star of a film that has lofty aspirations of emulating the storytelling style of Terrence Malick but struggles to stay quite that unfocused. The witch finds herself falling into a pattern of kill, inhabit and repeat, taking the time to experience life from inside the bodies of each of her victims, who are portrayed by Rapace, Alice Englert, Carloto Cotta and Sara Kilmoska. As our young witch moves from female to male to female again, she does her best to experience what it means to be human, to feel pleasure and even to fall in love.

Stolevski is certainly a talented director, and You Won’t Be Alone has an—excuse the pun—bewitching quality at its best, though it’s ultimately too experimental for mass audiences and not daring or inventive enough to leave much of a lasting impression. Rapace is terrific in what amounts to a glorified cameo, and Maranca is appropriately unsettling, even if her make-up often seems like it’s meant to be a mash-up between Freddy Kreuger and Carol Kane as Miracle Max’s wife in The Princess Bride. The cinematography by Matthew Chuang is easily the most appealing aspect of You Won’t Be Alone, and there are moments of real beauty. Tthe recurring theme of sexual experimentation—everybody does it in college or when they’re witch kidnapped by a wolf eateress and inhabiting mutiple bodies—got old rather quickly. In many ways You Won’t Be Alone plays too much like a rehash of Under The Skin in a period setting to feel like it’s worth the effort.

All in all, You Won’t Be Alone is an adequate if unexceptional film with scattered moments that do come alive, but it stands as more of a strong first attempt at a feature than a truly successful one. Hopefully Stolevski will find a stronger footing next time. –Patrick Gibbs