"birth/rebirth" - Film Review
This piece was written during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Without the labor of the writers and actors currently on strike, birth/rebirth wouldn't exist.
There’s a Frankensteinian horror to Birth/Rebirth. A nasty, bloody, uncomfortable terror that is not for the faint of heart. The same could also be said about motherhood, which is the main thematic undercurrent of the film. Two women are bound together by their science, ethics, medicine, and love. One of the women is Celi (Judy Reyes), a single mother and a nurse whose daughter, Lila (A.J. Lister), passed away from meningitis. The other woman, Rose (Marin Ireland), is a childless morgue technician who has been working on a theory that could potentially have helped Lila. It’s not a cure for meningitis or even a treatment plan. It’s a cure for something that affects every living thing on the planet: death. Celi’s daughter may have passed away, but death, as Rose discovers, is not permanent.
Courtesy of Shudder. An IFC Films release.
When you strip away the Frankenstein themes and the body horror, Birth/Rebirth can be seen as a charming odd-couple conundrum. Where Celi is warm and open, Rose is standoffish and cold. Yet because of their circumstances, the two are now living together, caring for Lila and Rose’s first attempt at reincarnation, Muriel the pig. Celi makes soup for Rose and teaches Muriel the “sit” command. They greet each other with a warm “I’m home” after a day’s shift. Their strange relationship is what keeps Birth/Rebirth grounded even when its characters create miracles. They bicker like an old married couple, complain about children’s tv show jingles, and make plans for dinner together. It’s oddly endearing and gives the squeamish among us something else to focus on.
Of course, the real meat of the story is Birth/Rebirth’s ideas about the ethics of Rose’s scientific and medical advancements. To even lightly imply that Rose has an iota of morality is an immense disservice to the Hippocratic oath. Rose’s means of keeping Lila and Muriel alive are not for the faint of heart and likely strike a specific, uncomfortable chord with anyone who has been pregnant. It is horrifying in the most basic sense of the word and not an easy film to watch. What makes Birth/Rebirth so disconcerting is that it doesn’t paint either main character as a villain. The film forces the audience to look at everything that has been laid out in front of them and come to their own conclusions about right and wrong. That’s more unsettling than a horror movie where the motives and ethics are clear. In films about demonic possession or slashers, there’s someone obvious to root for, a force of undeniable good. That’s far from the case in Birth/Rebirth, which makes the film feel essential, complicated, and urgent.
Courtesy of Shudder. An IFC Films release.
In horror movies, the audience is always wondering if the film will stick the landing. Will all of the strange events have meaning or were they simply there to provide scares along the way? In the case of Birth/Rebirth, the ending is the cherry on top of an already pitch-perfect film. It’s not an ending filled with rainbows and flowers, but that was never how the film was going to end. Birth/Rebirth is a furious, gnarly, complicated look at motherhood and science, where they intersect, where they diverge, and where they circle back into themselves.
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