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The film, In The Fire raises a question, “Would it still exist without Amber Heard?” This thought kept coming into my head because of how similar it was to how Florence Pugh’s The Wonder is. No, I’m not talking about the movie To the Wonder directed by Terrence Malik with Ben Affleck. In her movie, Pugh portrays a doctor who travels to a remote village to examine a child with suspicious divine powers. In the Fire features Amber as a physician who goes to South America to verify that a devil-possessed boy truly exists. Heard didn’t get any nominations but Pugh did for Oscar.
Hears hasn’t been out of the news lately, especially after her evaluation against her ex spouse Johnny Depp and the almost pointless television series that came after it. Heard has acted in more interesting films like The Danish Girl, Zombieland and The Rum Diary and seems quite awkwardly cast in something like In The Fire. The breathtaking visuals establishes quite a lot of expectation. A couple of respectable minor performances are great, but otherwise, In The Fire lacks sparkle and originality and seems self-plagiarized.
The new supernatural drama by co writer and director Conor Allyn begins with a skewed baptism ritual which can be attributed to a young boy called Martin (Lorenzo McGovern Zaini) who seems to have supernatural and demonic capabilities. He lives in a South American town that is soon visited by Dr Grace Burnham (Heard) who happens to be an alienist and her purpose of visiting this town is to investigate the society’s strange beliefs regarding the boy’s existence. “If there is a sick boy here, then I will see him,” is just one of the clumsy lines Heard attempt as she assumes this doctors role with remarkable tenacity and determination.
The boy with a suspiciously mundane name has a good first impression as an English speaking violinist and self loving narcissist which does contradict his father’s description of why he is being ostracised. As the story progresses, Martin’s father Nicolas (Eduardo Noriega) begins to comprehend and recall why Martin’s welfare mother chose to hazardously face her second childbirth and how a horse riding accident shaped their families narrative.
Even as doubts mount about her motives, Grace stands firm: ‘this is a problem of science, and we will deal with it as one.’ Her therapy sessions with the boy named Martin (who, to top it all, resembles young Damien from the Omen films) give her some hope. They visit the grave of Martin’s mother together, she gives him inkblots to analyze, etc. However, her optimism is rather misplaced.
Another parental figure in Martin’s life is Father Antonio (Luca Calvani), who keeps an eye on Martin, who at one point nearly pays for it with his life. The peasant villagers are rather hotheaded and not too forgiving with their beliefs. There are sick animals, and Martin the ‘demonic’ is the first to take the blame. Plus, he is also kind enough to feed starving little children in town, much to Grace’s admiration — but the boys end up dead. Was it his fault? Hmm…
When Grace attempts to have an audience with one of the village heads, Father Gavira (Yari Gugliucci), in order to convince them all to lean towards science, that does not go well either. This is most definitely the film’s most dramatic and pivotal moment as Grace ‘whips’ suffering the public punishment for being a witch. During the recent interview The director Allyn gave to MovieWeb, he indicated that it is understandable how Heard became interested in the elaborately penetrating account that details the life of those suffering persecution and isolation from the mainstream society for what are now live issues in the United States that Hear’s has had to tackle in her not too distant past.
But even after this horrific punishment scene, Grace stands her ground. She condemns Martin’s official medical diagnosis as “savant syndome”. Indeed, she claims Martin came to earth gifted having the ability to liberate compartments of the brain that many people do not even know to exist, and of course njc. Refusing to beleive, “those people are scared, and they need some one to blame.” Grace’s and Martin’s self inflicted ‘fling’ does sure stir the two into romance during her stay inbetween sessions. And while one can understand how Nicolas had reason to warm up molded grin, this seems rather exaggerated, doesn’t it?
Apart from the public beatings, another exciting moment is when Nicolas’ house gets burned down. At the same time, Martin is in the church screaming, “You are mine!” repeatedly, and people are starting to think that he set his own house on fire. Of course, Grace denies it, but still continues to wish Martin well, even when people are being highly violent to her.
Another disturbing scene is when Martin is in a therapy session. That is when he turns the tables on Grace with a rather peculiar question, “What is your lie?” Grace starts crying as she thinks she is a con artist, especially because her plans with Martin aren’t moving ahead. On the contrary, Nicolas thinks differently and thanks Grace for her effort, but perhaps he is biased because he is also starting to like Grace.
The next thing you know, the plague hits their town, and guess who is a prime suspect? Martin becomes the target of the locals and Grace is trying to shield him. “Get behind me, Martin!”, she shouts during an unusually tense moment of – and is this a biblical reference, when there is a Jesus and Peter confrontation, and Jesus turns to Peter and says, “Get behind me, Satan?” If so, points for cleverness. Aside from that, some of the film’s highlights were indeed splendid from a global perspective – including its world cinematography award, a rather cool toned palette for the gloomy mood, and the visuals, a welcomed shift from the norm. During our talk with Allyn, he stated that the young actor Lorenzo indeed wore special contact lenses to those terrifying eyes of his. He appears to be a strong candidate for a young – perhaps even pop – star on the market in the next few years, but In the Fire just seems strangely awkward and stale otherwise.
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