"Saint Maud" follows the titular Maud, a young hospice nurse in a small, dreary English seaside village who takes a job caring for Amanda, a cancer-stricken, middle-aged American dancer and bon vivant living in a secluded mansion on the hillside. Maud, a recent Catholic convert prone to her own bizarre visions, comes to believe that caring for the dying Amanda is her mission and purpose--a soul to save. But at what price?
This insular and occasionally shocking feature debut by director Rose Glass is, though marketed as a horror film, really more a psychological examination of abject loneliness and descent into madness. In some ways, it feels like it could have been written first as a novel, and that's part of what makes the film unique. The film's largest achievement is that is successfully operates on a number of levels, functioning as a meditation on loneliness, a portrait of a nervous breakdown, a hagiographic tragedy, as well as (possibly) a demonic possession story.
Ultimately, at its base level, "Saint Maud" is a character study reflected between the two dichotomous central characters: Maud, the lonely, psychologically-fragile nurse obsessed with matters of the spirit; and Amanda, a woman who has lived for the pleasures of the flesh (the fact that she was a dancer, a profession strongly appertained with the physical body, is no symbolic coincidence). Their philosophical clashing of perspectives ultimately shatters Maud, though she manages to rebuild her absolution in a terrifying way. Both characters are delicately portrayed by Morfydd Clark and Jennifer Ehle, respectively, and the film would not work without the strength they bring to each.
All in all, this film is a dour portrait of both mental decline and spiritual ecstasy, depending on how one wants to look at it. Glass puts forth her own take in the film's final frame, which almost veers too far into hokey territory, but in the end, "Saint Maud" manages to be a potent (and depressing) examination of one person's tragic search for purpose. 8/10.
