Have you been excited about seeing Saint Maud? So have we! And it feels like we’ve been waiting forever. But the movie is finally out, friends, and Mary and Emily are here with their thoughts. Please be warned: spoilers to follow.
Emily: This movie is one Mary and I have been looking forward to seeing for some time, so we’re excited to finally get to chat about it. Saint Maud is the feature directorial debut of Rose Glass, who wrote and directed this movie. The story is a character study in a lot of ways. It follows Maud, a young woman who has recently converted to Roman Catholicism, although the religion she practices takes on a lot of qualities that are unique to her and have nothing to do with the Catholic church, which is something I’d love to dive into more.
Mary: We really did wait so long for this one. I remember seeing trailers for it and wondering if it would ever play here. Remember trailers, Emily? Remember going to the movies?
Emily: Remember movie theater popcorn? I miss going to the movies. Anyway.
Mary: It really does seem like Maud takes some stereotypes of the Catholic faith, along with other aspects of religion in general, and perverts them to fit her own purposes. I don’t think any practicing Catholic would tell you to walk on nails all day, but there is definitely a history of self-flagellation in some sects of Christianity, which isn’t so far off. Most importantly, Maud isn’t guided by anyone but God, or whatever she perceives to be God. She comes up with all of this on her own, more or less.
Emily: Right. She doesn’t seem to attend any church or speak to anyone else who shares her religious beliefs. And while I’m not religious in any way, it seems to me like part of growing in your faith and learning about God involves discussing your ideas with others who believe the same things (or similar things) that you do. In other words, I feel like Maud needed someone in her life who was also of the Catholic faith to sort of be like, “Oh no, honey, God doesn’t want you to set yourself on fire.”
Mary: Definitely. The capital C Church has done soooo many bad things over the years, but it does provide a sounding board and direction for believers, especially new ones. Maud really needed that. Again, though, self-immolation also has a religious history. Sigh.
Emily: Right, but I assume if Maud spent time in a conventional contemporary Catholic church, they would not be down with her doing that. I ASSUME. One thing that Maud really seems to cling onto though is the whole Catholic guilt trope. That part of Catholicism is what most appeals to her and her life experiences. Before the start of the movie, we get the sense that Maud (whose name used to be Katie) had a patient die while under her care. And she felt very responsible for this death. Because of this, she converted to Catholicism and changed her name. And it seems like she also left behind a lot of other parts of her old life, like all of her friends and her old partying ways. In other words, Maud is in extreme opposition to everything that Katie was.
Mary: Yeah, it seems to be a pretty dramatic reversal. We only get glimpses of who Katie was, and many of those are from the perspective of people who knew her before. I kind of wanted more info about the accident, because it truly did seem like that. An accident. Maud has a vision of her breaking a man’s chest while doing CPR, but it seemed like an incredibly frail, older man. That happens all the time. I don’t like it, but it happens.
Emily: I feel like I need to consult both nurses and Catholics about this movie to get a fuller picture of what is normal and what isn’t normal. But since I’m not going to be putting in that work today because I’m just here to review a movie and not write a term paper, let’s move on (I know. I’m terrible).
We should talk about Amanda, because she plays a very important role in this movie. After Katie’s patient dies in the hospital in a death that may have been her fault, Katie/Maud leaves the hospital and takes on a job as a private care nurse for Amanda, a former dancer who seems to have been pretty famous and who is now terminally ill with stage four lymphoma. Clearly, Maud can’t save Amanda’s life, but she can save Amanda’s soul. And this becomes an obsession for her. What did you make of Maud’s relationship with Amanda? And what did you think of Amanda as a character?
Mary: I was really rooting for Amanda. I mean, obviously she is going to die—we know that from the outset—but I wanted her to be more successful in how she interacted with Maud, wanted her to be able to make a difference in how strict Maud was. Did Amanda have to go out of her way to be cruel to Maud? Absolutely not. But she does have a point that Maud is wasting her youth, in a sense. Maud is everything Amanda wishes she could have again, and she’s wasting it. I can’t imagine how infuriating that would be.
What did you think of Amanda?
Emily: This is going to seem obvious, but it bears saying. When we first met Amanda, I expected her to be really difficult and unbearable because the previous nurse called her the C-word. But then Amanda is a really pleasant person who’s in a really difficult spot. And it seems to be that she’s doing the best she can, given the circumstances. She’s really kind and understanding with Maud for the most part.
But I think Amanda has something that is seen as threatening in women: Amanda feels free to express herself. She’s open about her sexuality. She was a person who seemed to try to take advantage of every joy in life, while she had the opportunity. So yes, in a lot of ways, she’s the antithesis of Maud, and she is rightfully frustrated that Maud is spoiling her health and youth by literally torturing herself with religion.
I think, obviously, there was a sexual tension thing happening between Maud and Amanda too. They have this moment together where they share an orgasmic encounter with God, and after that, Maud tells Amanda’s hired girlfriend (not sure what else to call her — they seem to have a close relationship but also Amanda pays her to be there) to get lost. Of course, part of this is Maud’s obsession with “saving” Amanda’s soul. But it also feels a lot like jealousy.
Mary: Oh gosh, that’s a great point. Maud is very intimidated by Amanda’s sexuality and her desire to, well, be desired even so close to death. The orgasmic-religious moment was really interesting to me. It reminded me a lot of a writer I encountered in a world lit class. She was Irish, I think, and she basically told her husband she needed to go live in a hut alone, just her and God. Really, she didn’t want to have any more kids (she’d had 13) because she thought it would kill her. Her husband didn’t agree and wanted to have sex anyway, so she just left. Her writings are very religious, but also blatantly sexual. I think a lot of people write about God in a sexual, or at least romantic, way. If you change the word “God” to “baby” in most contemporary Christian songs, you’ll see what I mean. But this is maybe a tangent. I totally agree with you here on Amanda.
What do you think the ending means, and how does that relate to the overall message of the film?
For me, I was initially thinking that Amanda was demon possessed, because of the way she behaved when Maud confronted her. Now, I’m leaning more towards it all being a hallucination on Maud’s part. I think Maud saw what she wanted to see.
Emily: I watched a review today that said it’s “obvious” that it was all a hallucination, and he appreciated that it wasn’t ambiguous. I didn’t see it that way. To me, it felt like you could still read it either way. When you’re watching a movie from the perspective of a character who is unreliable in some way (and honestly what character isn’t unreliable in some way), it’s impossible to say for sure what’s real and what isn’t.
The reviewer said that he felt like it was obvious because in the end, we see Maud’s body burning. I don’t think that scene at the end gives us a definitive answer though, because the way I initially read it was that a demon possessed her to burn herself, and of course, burning yourself will not free your spirit to go to heaven or whatever. You’ll just burn to a crisp and it will be super duper uncomfortable.
But going back to the part you’re talking about, that’s the part that made me think for sure this was a case of demonic possession. There’s just a certain point where the plot goes so far that to say “it’s all in her head” kind of cheapens the whole story. Like, how much of that interaction with Amanda is meant to be in her head? Just the last part where Amanda is laughing at her? Just the part where she renounces God? The whole conversation? Did this movie even happen?
I guess what I’m saying is: The “intellectual” answer might be that it was all in her head and the real horror is religious fanaticism. But isn’t demonic possession more fun?
Mary: Demonic possession is always going to be more fun than mental illness, isn’t it? I wish this movie had gone full Hereditary or Rosemary’s Baby, which kind of stand out as two wonderful horror films for me because they don’t pull back from what the characters suspect is happening. Instead, they go full force into saying that it’s all real and everyone has a solid reason to be worried. I wish Saint Maud had joined in on that, and I’m kind of surprised it didn’t. A24 has a very specific horror style that is kind of developing into its own thing. I think now that people have discussed it as a cohesive style, the studio might pull back from it a bit, but who knows.
I just wish that the film gave us some more definite answers. This didn’t feel like the sort of story that needed an ambiguous ending. Uncertainty definitely has its place in film, but I think that, especially considering Amanda’s weird possession moment, we needed something more concrete here. In other words, I liked this movie a lot, but it doesn’t live up to my ultimate horror faves, which really made me think long after watching. How do you rate Saint Maud?
Emily: I ended up rating it four stars on Letterboxd. Stylistically, it was doing a lot for me, and the moments where it felt like Maud/Katie was being possessed by some sort of “holy spirit” were truly terrifying. But I think maybe it’s wrong to call this movie a horror film in the truest sense of the word. It’s definitely psychological, but maybe just dipping a toe in horror. We get hints that something horrific is going on, but like you said, the movie doesn’t commit. And as a horror lover, I think I would have loved this movie if it had fully committed. As it stands, I appreciate it for its artfulness and the acting. But it’s not one I feel like I’ll return to, and I’m not sure how much I’ll keep thinking about it in years to come. But who knows?
Mary: I definitely agree. I liked it, and I enjoyed it while I was watching, but I don’t think I’m going to spend a lot of time thinking about it. I think I’d give it a 3.5. It was good, and I’d tell other people to watch it, but the lack of commitment disappointed me and kept it from being truly great.
But you’re right, maybe we’ll be haunted by it for years and return to it one day!
If you want to see Saint Maud, it’s now showing in select theaters and will be available on EPIX starting February 12. Just in time for Valentine’s Day. Appropriate, right?