Seven Veils (2025)
Seven Veils (2025)
Blog Article
Fifteen years after starring in “Chloe,” Amanda Seyfried has re-teamed with Canadian director Atom Egoyan for another daring, psychosexual film that resists easy explanation. Egoyan has always delved right into fraught familial ties without shying away from ugliness, and “Seven Veils” is perhaps his most overt exploration of familial trauma.
The film follows Jeanine (Seyfried), a theater director making her return to opera by mounting a production of Salome. The play, originally written by Oscar Wilde, is a telling of the classical Biblical story of a woman demanding the head of John the Baptist. Salome wants the head in Wilde's play so she can finally kiss his lips. John the Baptist disdains Salome as a living man by refusing to gaze upon her or acknowledge her affections. His murder is a terrible injustice as a result of this rejection. The opera version of the play follows the same plot and allows song to convey Salome's pain and the tragedy of the play as a whole.
Jeanine was a brilliant director who taught her when she was younger, but he passed away recently, leaving a void in her life. It was his dying wish for her to direct this remount of Salome, a pointed choice that gestures to their history. Her memories of him are intertwined with memories of her late father Harold (Ryan McDonald), whose relationship with her was characterized by unhealthy obsession. In the present, Jeanine is separated from her husband Paul (Mark O’Brien), unbeknownst to their young daughter Lizzie (Maya Misaljevic). They’re both back home with Jeanine’s mother Margot (Lynne Griffin), who is being looked after full time by her nurse Dimitra (Maia Jae Bastidas). In addition to putting on such a massive opera production, Jeanine harbors the private worry that Dimitra and Paul are secretly dating and seeing each other at her mother's house.
Not that her relationship with her mother is much better, as the shadow of her father looms large in their lives. Her mother always responds, "He loved her too much," when asked what her father did to Jeanine. As if Salome were a conventional play, Jeanine obsesses over minute performance, prop, and stage directions details. The actors and management, particularly Beatrice (Lanette Ware), Charles's widow, are frequently confused by her frequent interruptions of rehearsal and production changes. There’s even more backstage drama with Clea (Rebecca Liddiard) who has an uncomfortable time with the opera’s temperamental and chauvinist lead Johann (Michael Kupfer-Radecky). Clea, like Jeanine, has a personal connection to the show as well. She used to date the other lead, Ambur (Ambur Braid), and she is currently with her understudy Rachel (Vinessa Antoine). Luke (Douglas Smith), the other understudy, who appears to have feelings for Jeanine, completes the web. None of these connections are explored fully, keeping the focus on the production details of Salome.
During rehearsals, Jeanine is haunted by thoughts of Charles and her father. As a result, she exhibits a great deal of emotion and anguish, which she refuses to conceal from her coworkers. Despite the fact that her position prevents them from speaking plainly, everyone can see that she struggles with the task of directing this opera. There is a sense that whispers follow Jeanine wherever she goes as she works. One of the most affecting recurring images in “Seven Veils” is a video of a young Jeanine blindfolded in the forest, filmed by her father in different settings and poses. These are the memories that Jeanine told Charles, and Charles later incorporated them into Salome. This exemplifies the odd nature of their connection—an affair brought to light by a perverse, unbalanced artistic collaboration.
Seyfried portrays Jeanine as a woman who is possessed by her past traumas and actively seeks emotional release. McDonald plays her late father in such a haunting way that his image serves as both Charles and him. We are left to assume that Charles had the same quiet madness in his eyes that was disguised as artistic zeal. However, the only thing that is certain is Jeanine's suffering! Egoyan never quite gets to the bottom of the film's mystery. The third act of “Seven Veils” has the feeling of a big climax, leading up to a large emotional crescendo. But the revelations don’t happen on stage. As the characters crash into each other in lasting and meaningful ways, we’re left as an audience to wonder if the emotional revelations will stick. It's possible that the goal of everything was to free Jeanine—and thus everyone else—from the specters of the past.
For More Movies Like Seven Veils (2025) Visit 123Movies
Report this page