Darkest Miriam is a new psychological thriller starring Britt Lower that plunges deep into the haunting story of Miriam, a woman trying to navigate the shadows of her past. While the movie has truly affecting work from Lower herself, it’s also beset by uneven storytelling and issues of pacing that siphon some of its overall impact.
Storyline and Themes
The movie follows the story of Miriam, performed by Lower, who heads back to her childhood home following the death of her estranged mother. The farther she delves into her traumatizing past, the more she finds long-buried secrets, leaving her unsure about whether she is dreaming or really living a nightmare. The film tackles themes of memory and trauma and speaks to the way in which unresolved issues may continue to haunt some families for generations. Darkest Miriam really digs into trauma and its complex ways of contributing to making sense of the world. The film shows Miriam attempting to understand her splintered memories and fighting against the horror of a past that has held no answers. The evocation of memory and trauma is touching, but the way it is executed sometimes seems forced.
Britt Lower’s Outstanding Performance
The best thing about the film is Lower’s performance as Miriam. She has a strong, intense presence that is very felt, capturing the vulnerability and inner turmoil of the character. Her ability to show a wide range of feelings, from fear to anger to sorrow, really builds the depth of the narrative and keeps the audience turned in, even when the story isn’t holding.
Atmospheric Direction and Uneven Narrative
The film is judiciously handled in tone and atmosphere by first-time director, Samantha Aldana. She does a very good job with the dim lighting, eerie sound design, and suffocating framing to ratchet up the repressive atmosphere and disturbing tensions. Her visual style enhances the psychological tension, making the audience feel as trapped and unsettled as Miriam herself. However, with a script that is uneven, Darkest Miriam, does not serve well despite the premise and a compelling performance from Britt Lower. The storyline is long, and sometimes the development is slow.
While the film can be described, at its best, as offering superb suspense and real emotional engagement, at its worst, it is an exercise in frustration that ultimately doesn’t deliver anything close to the sum total of its parts in a psychological thriller.
But “Darkest Miriam” is, in sum, a psychological thriller that shows off the considerable talents of Britt Lower, as well as the atmospheric direction by Samantha Aldana. But an uneven narrative and pacing ultimately prevent it from being something exceptional in the psychological genre. It will probably be appreciated by psychological thriller fans due to those elements of Lower’s performance and the film’s dealing with trauma, but others might see it as lacking cohesion and thus not so powerful.