Out of Screamfest, John Mathis’ Bonded misfires its spell-casting for something tepid and ineffective. All the pieces are there; they’re just fitted together incorrectly, creating a classic Pablo Picasso face. With a script co-written with Emilia Cotella, the film operates as an indictment of cult behavior and indoctrination, as well as tackles loss of humanity and innocence, complicity, and how lies always bite back. A lack of urgency weighs the story down to a sluggish pace, despite some gripping and terrifying imagery sprinkled throughout the story.
Dana (Bianca Mitnik) and her older sister Lujan (Clara Kovacic) were seperated when they were kids. They haven’t seen each other in decades. When they get news that their parents died in an apparent murder-suicide, they return to their childhood home in the countryside. Dana’s coldness towards Lujan is palpable, suffocating even. And for good reason. Lujan hopes to rekindle her relationship with Dana and maybe find some common ground. That also requires Lujan being honest about what happened when they were kids down in a bunker on their parents’ property. Through misery, she hungers for a way out of the darkness that’s surrounded her all her life.
As Dana and Lujan attempt some sort of reconciliation, it becomes clear that something (or someone) is trying to expose the truth about their family. Mathis exposes a sinister web of deceit, exploitation, and insidious violence that’s a hallmark of cults. With its delicate, nuanced layers, Bonded doesn’t shy away from confronting trauma and the outward ripples into every facet of one’s life. Such a way of life causes immense pain and suffering that goes unchecked and dismissed. Mitnik and Kovacic deliver textured performances that sell the hell out of the script with profound conviction. What is essentially a two-player stage show, Bonded feels reminiscent of a Chekhov play with its brutally mundane unraveling and eventual bubble burst. It’s both an advantage and a disadvantage, and perhaps, that’s a price to pay to cut to the humanity of it all.
There’s a remarkable sense of slick eeriness to the visual storytelling, owed to cinematographer Samuel Watson’s collaboration with Mathis. Moments of sheer brilliance, particularly involving the Wooden Man, heighten the overwhelming sense of doom. Even as the film loses its way and steps back from diving into absolute unhinged territory, there are a handful of sequences that seem like someone’s nightmare. Ultimately, however, Bonded avoids giving Kovacic more meat on the bone in a way that shows a clear deterioration of the mind and autonomy. Perhaps, it’s an unfortunate side effect of hyper-stylized folk horror that goes for a more subdued approach.
John Mathis’ Bonded is not without its dizzying highs. The third act unleashes hell on Dana and her relationship with Lujan, initiating left hooks to the jaw and punches to the stomach. It’s just tragic that it takes too long to get there and doesn’t quite go to the extremes. It’s earned as much, so the payoff doesn’t match the frustrating buildup.
