A Banquet (2021) is an incredibly slow-burn, incredibly meticulous family drama with only a distant-feeling link to its more supernatural content – if that is the right way to even describe the direction it takes. As such, it may feel too remote and abstract for some audiences. However, at its heart it’s a story about the love between a mother and her daughters, and this is explored very beautifully in places, though obliquely in others. It will likely be divisive, even whilst everyone should be able to note its strengths.
In an unaccountably wealthy English family, we’re first made privy to a suicide. The father of the family, it seems, has been labouring under a long and excruciating illness which requires the dedicated care of his wife, Holly. He decides to take matters into his own hands, swallowing a quantity of bleach; the scene where his bloodied bile and stomach contents flow out onto the polished floor sums up a lot about the film and its visuals, where affluence is sidestepped by the people living in the midst of it.
Left behind after his death are Holly, and daughters Betsey and Isabelle. The family seems, at least on the surface, to be coping well. However, Betsey (Jessica Alexander) is finding it difficult to focus: she hasn’t chosen her university yet, for example, and seems hesitant about studying further at all. At a house party, where she again feels left out, she notices a vast-seeming, crimson moon, and goes outside to better see it. This leads her away from the house, and she returns having had a strange experience of some kind, leaving her catatonic for a few moments. She’s taken home but these interludes continue, gradually closing her off from her friends and family.
One of the most immediate impacts of this is on Betsey’s eating habits. Suddenly, she can no longer tolerate food – any food (and all the food presented in this film looks incredibly appetising, which makes Betsey’s rejection of it look more and more surprising). Fearing anorexia, which she scornfully categorises as a ‘white, middle class’ illness, mum Holly begins to pathologise Betsey’s behaviour and to struggle against it, with a raft of medical appointments and the like. Grandmother June (the wonderful Lindsay Duncan) is sceptical of the whole business, thinking Betsey has spent her life to date an actress, seeking attention; now she has successfully hit on a winning strategy to get it. Surprisingly though, Betsey’s weight seems to remain constant, but she behaves as defensively as if she was deliberately self-harming. But then, she continues to go into the strange reveries which started with the party. If she makes an explanation for this to anyone close to her, then whatever she tells them traumatises them to the point that their behaviour shifts, making them want to avoid her company altogether. She holds off from having this conversation with her mother, though, to the mutual frustration of both. Left in the middle of all this is younger sister Isabelle (Ruby Stokes) who is largely left to get on with it as her mother focuses on her self-declared ‘special girl’. Whilst the actresses playing Betsey and Holly deserve much credit for their performances, it’s the character of Isabelle which really appeals – Stokes offers a subtle, nuanced portrayal of what it feels like to be ignored.
Lots remains unsaid here. Some elements reminded me of Honeymoon (2014), with character Bea’s gradual disappearance from her body after a similarly mysterious encounter in the woods. However, most of all A Banquet calls to mind The Killing of a Sacred Deer with its own somewhat marred family dynamics, its own reams of unspoken explanations for what goes on between those four walls. A Banquet is a very ambiguous piece of cinema, though there are issues. For one, perhaps it takes too long to creep so carefully towards its destination. It certainly does not prioritise explanation and there are some frustrations incumbent on this. It hints at some kind of mythos, and more of this as pay-off for the time spent on difficult family drama would have balanced things more, but save for a few read-between-the-lines moments, it demurs for the most part.
However, A Banquet does offer a sensitive, considered exploration of family beliefs and boundaries, and it’s sympathetically acted by a talented cast with its catastrophic end note which finally upsets the awful quiet. For fans of atmosphere over narrative, there’s a lot to get lost in and to appreciate here. As the first feature by director Ruth Paxton, it promises very heady, detailed and thought-provoking work to come.
A Banquet (2021) screened as part of the Celluloid Screams film festival in Sheffield, UK.