Birth / Rebirth (2023) spoiler free review
Birth/Rebirth is a 2023 American psychological horror film directed by Laura Moss, written by Moss and Brendan J. O’Brien and is inspired by the novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2023, was theatrically released in the United States on August 18, 2023, and was released on Shudder on November 10, 2023.
A morgue technician successfully reanimates the body of a little girl, but she must harvest biological materials from pregnant women to keep the child breathing. When the girl’s mother, a nurse, discovers her baby is alive, the two enter into a deal that forces them both down a dark path.
Film synopsis
The cast includes Marin Ireland as Rose, Judy Reyes as Celie, A.J. Lister as Lila, Breeda Wool as Emily, Monique Gabriela Curnen as Rita, Grant Harrison as Scott, LaChanze as Colleen, and Rina Mejia as Pauline.
My opinion
Opening with a pregnant woman dying after an emergency cesarean section we see how Rose, a forensic pathologist, takes care of the mother’s corpse while Celie, a labor and delivery nurse, cares for the newborn baby. Both work in the same hospital without knowing each other, at both ends of life: birth and death. After the sudden death of Lila, Celie’s little daughter, destiny unites the paths of these two women, totally opposite in principles and morals, but who share the same goal: keeping Lila alive.
Inspired by Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, Birth/Rebirth features easy-to-relate parallels with the novel. But, the story becomes unpredictable when Rose and Celie’s decisions are the opposite of what is expected in this type of situations. Instead of being angry and hurt upon discovering her daughter’s reanimated body in Rose’s apartment, Celie is relieved and willing to continue with the experiment no matter the cost. We can see how Celie’s professional ethics gradually collapse, along with her mental state, leaving in the end a woman willing to do anything to avoid losing her daughter again. Rose, on the other hand, never lets her emotions overwhelm her, even when one of her experiments fails and it would expected to see frustration and anger, but for her is just science.
Both are complex but well written and performed characters. The work done by Marin Ireland as Rose, and Judy Reyes as Celie It’s outstanding, elevating the film to something more than just a body horror film. Still, we never see that creator/monster relationship where the creator begins to question whether he went too far and the dangers it poses. This causes the film to lack the fear factor and only the dark atmosphere created by the cinematography and setting remains.