• Add Rose Glass to the very short list of gifted auteurs whose film I look forward to next. Saint Maud is Glass’s debut, and I’ve praised A24 many times here- and yes- they should get credit for endorsing these young talents- but that takes nothing away from the writer/director and vision here.

Add Rose Glass to the very short list of gifted auteurs whose film I look forward to next

  • Saint Maud’s house is built upon Schrader and Scorsese’s Taxi Driver. Schrader actually re-laid some claim to that in recent years with the brilliant First Reformed (2017) — but he also is the director of 1979’s Hardcore. This takes nothing away from Glass. This is her work—these films are all descendants of The Searchers anyhow (as is 2019’s The Joker from Todd Phillips as well). This is simply another excellent entry in this line—not to mention elevated horror as a subgenre and A24’s resume (as I mentioned already)
  • Morfydd Clark plays Maud, Glass’s Travis Bickle, and instead of 1970’s New York City her milieu and sewer—this time it is Scarborough’s Coney Island

Heavily designed wavy retro wallpaper

  • Voice-over of Maud praying—like Travis she has stomach issues – effervescent tablet in water (like Taxi Driver, First Reformed– this is actually from Bresson’s Diary of a Country Priest)
  • Glass smartly strips this down- 84 minutes and even at that it is a slow burn that slowly builds, uncoils and leaps off the screen in the second half. Like Ari Aster in Midsommar, or Coogler in Black Panther, Glass flips the world upside down to showcase Maud’s damaged psyche and her turning point. Later Glass literally flips the stairs sideways as Maud descends… she’s unraveling

Like Ari Aster in Midsommar, or Coogler in Black Panther, Glass flips the world upside down to showcase Maud’s damaged psyche and her turning point. Later Glass literally flips the stairs sideways as Maud descends… she’s unraveling

  • A split diopter is used in a similarly brilliant way- cinema style to show the protagonist’s headspace—soft focus (like say Antonioni’s halo of haze around Monica Vitti in Red Desert), we even have some low-angle closeups like Gilliam (for distorted reality), and Spike’s reverse double-dolly used after Maud leaves Amanda’s (Jennifer Ehle— looking like Meryl Streep at a younger age) house for the final time for a heightened dramatic effect
  • Like Schrader’s First Reformed we have a levitation scene—from Tarkovsky originally—here with the fireworks in the background
  • William Blake art

A stark, sad lonely apartment- a bug, the voice of God in Welsh

  • There have been a half-dozen references above but the moving heavens feels like Joe Nichols’ Take Shelter or even von Trier’s Breaking the Waves as well
  • Highly Recommend- top 10 of the year quality