Review of Joshua (2007) by Kinnon P — 11 Feb 2008

Ignore comparisons with other entries in the "evil seed" genre, this film takes it's time to genuinely enjoy messing with your mind. On one hand you have a seemingly perfect succesful manhattan family welcoming their second born into the world, but from the outset, the cracks begin to show, and soon it's evident that their first born Joshua might not only be a true sociopath, but also a victim of his upbringing and surroundings.

The aprtment plays like a terribly enclosed space which helps to amp up the trapped feeling that encircles the family, moral ambiguity is played nicely and the whole thing is topped with possibly the most unsettling soundtrack I've enjoyed in many a year.

Ultimately Joshua paces itself slowly to wrest the best from audience that is paying attention, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Imagine the childhood of Patrick Bateman and you've almost got a handle on it.

Rockwell is superb as the strong father, Vera Farmiga disitegrates wonderfully in postpardum depression and Jacob Kogan delivers the finest and most bone chillingly frightening movie monster in many a year, and indeed if I hadn't seen Javier Bardem in No country for Old men, he would have sewn it all up for 2007.

A film that succeeds in making the viewer unnerved and terrified of children, no mean feat.