Dragonfly is based on a simple idea: how dangerous it is to trust anyone while you’re weakened, whether through old age, disability or both. Unfortunately it is also so worried that we won’t understand the nuances of this very good idea that it overdoes things, and collapses. This is very frustrating because Dragonfly would have been a much better movie if the potential horror wasn’t so loudly telegraphed, and the two central performances are so strong that it’s worth seeing regardless. But the main feeling Dragonfly leaves you is frustration that it didn’t trust its own premise.
The houses at the center of the movie is what British people call a semi-detached bungalow and Americans call a duplex: two two-bedroom ground floor houses that are mirrors of each other. On the right hand side is Colleen (Andrea Riseborough), who doesn’t work, takes little care of herself and has nothing to do all day but hang out with her very large dog. She’s lived there about a year and it’s clear having her there has been of some concern to Elsie (Brenda Blethyn), a widow who has lived in her house for decades. It’s where she raised her now middle-aged son John (Jason Watkins), who has his own family but keeps in constant touch by phone, especially while Elsie is recovering from a recent fall.
John has arranged for private care assistants to come in three times a week, and these women on minimum wage are meant in an hour to wash Elsie, cook her a hot meal, clean the house, do the laundry and keep her company before rushing to their next appointment. Some of these women are kinder and better at their work than others, but none of them are comfortable that Colleen sits in the front garden with her dog to observe the street. It’s an aggressive thing to do in English culture, openly observing your neighbours. Thanks to the dog Colleen and Elsie begin chatting and thanks to Colleen’s sharp eyes a problem with one of the care workers is averted. Eventually she offers to take care of Elsie for free as a way for them to be company to each other. Elsie accepts with relief and at the start things go very well indeed. Colleen irons the bedsheets the way Elsie likes, cooks a nice dinner, hangs out the laundry, chats. But in her eagerness to involve herself in Elsie’s life, it becomes clear this might not have been such a great idea. For one thing, John might not be physically present, but he will always be Elsie’s son.
Writer-director Paul Andrew Williams, who also plays the small part of the pawnbroker, clearly didn’t trust that we’d worry about Elsie’s well-being enough and instead works very hard to telegraph that we ought to be concerned about Colleen. Ms. Riseborough allows herself to look deeply unattractive as a woman who has been so kicked around by life that she’s almost forgotten it’s worth living, and who is so thrilled to make a friend that her enthusiasm goes too far. For her own part Ms. Blethyn does a wonderful job playing a woman who is not used to being looked after and who doesn’t like other people’s attempts to assert themselves over her. Despite her current physical trouble Elise is clearly a thoughtful judge of character, but right now she’s not capable of standing up for herself. The heavy-handed sound cues as people walk all over her are just too much. The trouble she’s in is obvious enough.
The choice of Mr. Watkins to play the son is also a good one. He is well known in the UK for light television comedy and he’s so expert at it he recently stole the stage production of The Seagull in London out from under Emma Corrin, Tom Burke and Cate Blanchett. Here his calm quiet good nature is actually quite menacing as he thinks he knows best for his mother. Elsie and Colleen, for separate reasons, disagree, and the ways in which that’s resolved come to a very remarkable ending. Things go too far, but for excellent reasons and in very believable ways, and all the horror is just so ordinary that it’s more horrible still. You don’t need special effects when someone hearing a conversation they shouldn’t have or waking up someone asleep is terrifying enough. If Mr. Williams had trusted his expert cast and crew just a little more, Dragonfly would have been exceptional indeed. It’s still pretty good, but as it is Dragonfly – like old age, or disability – is very tough to take.
Dragonfly is now in theaters.
Learn more about the film at the IMDB site for the title.
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