Hatching

Hatching, 2022, 2 ½ stars

Bird is the word

Exclusive to MeierMovies, March 31, 2022

This unsettling directorial debut by Finland’s Hanna Bergholm spins the story of Tinja (Siiri Solalinna), a 12-year-old aspiring gymnast pushed to perfection by her overbearing mother (Sophia Heikkilä), who, despite her desire for domestic utopia, is cheating on her cuckold of a husband. In what could be viewed as a metaphorical act of revenge, an outlandish quest for love or simply a supernatural occurrence, Tinja discovers a bird’s egg, cares for it until it hatches and, well, you’ll see.

Thanks to animal cruelty, an abundance of vomit, a slow first act and some questionable choices in the third, Hatching laid an egg for me – albeit an interesting one. But fans of midnight movies and body horror will enjoy cracking open this psychological, satirical thriller to discover what lies inside.

Hatching owes a lot to B-movies and David Cronenberg, but, surprisingly, something to Alfred Hitchcock too. It’s Psycho meets The Birds. And just wait until you see Norman Bates’s mother. I mean sister. I mean bird.

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This capsule review is part of my coverage of the 2022 Florida Film Festival. For more information about the event and an index of reviews of other festival films, go here. For more information on this movie, visit IMDB.