Birth/Rebirth
Directed by Laura Moss
Written by Laura Moss and Brendan J. O'Brien
Starring Marin Ireland, Judy Reyes, A.J. Lister, Breeda Wool, Monique Gabriela Curnen, LaChanze
Unrated
Runtime: 98 minutes
In Theaters August 18th

by Tori Potenza, Staff Writer

Mary Shelley has dazzled audiences for generations with her classic horror story, Frankenstein. Since then there have been countless retellings of the mad scientist and their reanimated corpse monster. The story is iconic, and writers and filmmakers have found countless ways to make this their own because the cycle of life, death, and rebirth plays with so many philosophical questions intrinsic to human nature. So what changes when we take the story and center it around women; women as the mad scientist, women as monsters, and women as grieving mothers? Well Laura Moss’s feature directorial debut, Birth/Rebirth, delves right into this and explores how the narrative changes when the world of Frankenstein is populated by women. And through this, they shine a light on motherhood, womanhood, and the ethics of science.

Rose (Marin Ireland) is a pathologist who spends most of her time hanging around dead bodies, which seems to suit her fine as she can focus on her experiments and avoid human contact. Celie (Judy Reyes) is a maternity nurse who gets to spend her days bringing life into the world and doting on her 6-year-old daughter. The two women could not be more different, but their lives are inextricably bound together when Celie’s daughter suddenly dies. Celie is consumed by grief, and Rose thinks she has found the perfect new test subject to help her in her quest to bring the dead back to life. The two are forced to work together, pushing themselves further into the darkness as they work to bring Celie’s daughter back from the dead.

Birth/Rebirth makes a fascinating pairing with Alice Birch’s Dead Ringers series that premiered this year. Both of them do a gender swap on their main characters. While gender swaps can sometimes feel like a cheap way for studios to make their shows more diverse when done with the right creative eye, it can give you an entirely different story. By centering a Frankenstein story around women, we get to explore the role of sex and identity in science. Rose, who is cold and initially incapable of making a human connection with those around her, finds her own way of giving birth through her science. While Celie has to deal with the trauma of losing her daughter and deciding how far she is willing to go in order to become a mother once again. Ultimately Birth/Rebirth is a fascinating meditation on identity and the nuances that femininity brings to the scientific sphere.

Much like films like Pet Semetary, this makes us hone in on the phrase “sometimes dead is better”. Who benefits from bringing a loved one back from the dead? Is it an inherently selfish act, especially when the dead cannot consent to this resurrection? How much of our humanity are we willing to kill in order to bring back the one we care about, and is it worth it? Does this amount of emotion ultimately cloud the scientific process? This is a hard bleak movie, that brings up some hard questions. It is even more relevant in a post-Dodd world where the rights over our own bodily autonomy feel like they are being ripped away from us. This is especially relevant in a scene where a mother is told “Your baby will be fine” and she asks “What about me?” to which Celie has no answer because the mother is almost immediately an afterthought. It is hard not to have an emotionally charged reaction to this movie when it manages to feel so grounded in reality.

It is a difficult movie, and it certainly won’t be for everyone. If you are hoping for a fun horror watch, you might want to look elsewhere. But it does have heart and some dark comedy which all hinges on its lead performances. Marin Ireland has been making a name for herself in horror with performances in The Boogeyman, The Empty Man, and The Dark and the Wicked. Judy Reyes plays a very different kind of nurse from the one she played on Scrubs. The two have a great back-and-forth throughout the film considering how different their characters are. We get to see how this dark secret binds these women together and also makes them rub off on each other. They are combative, caring, and deeply committed to what they do and the toll it takes. They are driven by different things but somehow end up on the same journey together.

This is a strong debut for Laura Moss who clearly had a very unique and interesting story to tell through the lens of reanimation and body horror. Their world is bleak, violent, and yet inherently feminine. Everything from the look, feel, and sound of the film clues us into the tone they wanted. Body horror needs more diverse individuals telling their stories, as we have seen from stand-out directors like Julia Ducournau (Raw, Titane). We can only hope that Moss sticks with the genre and gives us more complex stories to meditate on.

Ultimately, you are left asking who are the real monsters of this world? The ones forced back into consciousness to wallow on the earth once more or the ones who are willing to destroy the world for their own piece of personal happiness? Moss has now added their horrors to the growing list of individuals who have used their craft to speak to various issues inherent to womanhood. Yet what is most interesting is how different all of their stories are, showing that so many individuals have a different perspective they want to bring out into the world. Many of them are out there now striking to continue telling their stories and honing their craft. So as the SAG-AFTRA/WGA Strike continues remember to support, donate, and speak up because a whole lot of people out there are fighting for their livelihood.