Cinema certainly offers no shortly of coming-of-age films, yet very rarely do any of them rise above qualified praise to break the mold and stand out as an exceptional piece of work. Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank and Julia Ducournau’s Raw, two of the best if divisive recent examples, elevate the subgenre through attention to form and a generally uncompromising vision from their directors, though they also tackle unconventional narratives that involve template-breaking stories of impoverished hip-hop dancers and cannibalistic veterinary school students (respectively, of course). With Hoard, writer/director Luna Carmoon operates in a similar vein to these predecessors, exploring trauma through generational rot and unchecked obsession, which literally manifests itself in the eponymous act of gross overaccumulation of goods and items. Making the leap from short film work to her feature-length debut, Carmoon demonstrates notable assurance and skill with her bold tale of a young woman carving her own path through a challenging upbringing. The film does grow a mite unfocused as the shaggy backend fills out an overlong 126-minute runtime, but as it stands, Hoard squarely establishes Carmoon as a filmmaker to watch, her vision supported by the impressive performances of her lead actors.
Opening in the mid-1980s, Hoard centers on Maria (played in this first section by Lily-Beau Leach), a primary school-aged girl who lives with her single mum Cynthia (a terrific Hayley Squires) in Britain. Cynthia is a massive hoarder, routinely keeping Maria up late at night to dumpster dive behind various establishments and return home with a grocery cart full of garbage and discarded belongings, having turned their home into a repository for trash, adorned with various crafts and a wild ferret who comes and goes as he pleases. Their nocturnal escapades make Maria an outcast at school, who habitually forgets her spare gym clothes or grows too exhausted to participate in choir practice. When tragedy strikes and Cynthia gets crushed within the kingdom of her own making, Maria is placed into a foster home with the kindly Michelle (Samantha Spiro). 10 years later, Maria (now played by Saura Lightfoot Leon) enjoys a semi-normal life, spending time with best friend Laraib (Deba Hekmat) and gearing up for the end of high school. When Michael (Joseph Quinn), a former foster child of Michelle, moves back into the home, Maria finds herself irresistibly drawn to the 30-year old man, exploring her own sexual awakening and going to great lengths to vie for his affection, even if it involves resorting to her old habits.
The first act of Hoard‘s larger arc specifically deals with doling out details of Maria’s shocking upbringing, where Cynthia rules with an iron fist over maintenance of even the most miniscule of items: Maria has been trained to stash detritus in her lunchbox, and gets reprimanded if she so much as forgets to bring the tinfoil her lunches are wrapped in back home from school. Cynthia clearly cares for her daughter, and Maria has nothing but love for her mother, but even she begins to find her own existence questionable, wondering why none of the homes of her fellow schoolmates look like hers. Maria takes the time to explore new pockets of fascination in the filth, soon developing a nauseating obsession with saliva after witnessing a scene from Volker Schlöndorff’s Tin Drum on the telly. Carmoon sells the decay extraordinarily well, constructing an elaborately disgusting domicile. It’s a palpably repulsive accomplishment, and if the defunct Smell-O-Vision were to return with Hoard, it could potentially be grounds for violating the Geneva Conventions.
After the relationship between Maria and Cynthia grows frayed to the point that the latter is removed from the former’s life, Carmoon employs a time jump and finally gets the opportunity to unleash Lightfoot Leon on the feature. Also making her feature-length debut, Lightfoot Leon is a force as the older Maria, exhibiting an animalistic temperament as she imbues a raw, almost manic energy into the proceedings, fearlessly following where Carmoon leads her. It’s remarkable turn, and she’s matched well by Quinn, whose Michael acts as spoiler in Maria’s life, disrupting routine to partake in the unsavory consumption of cremated remains, eventually escalating to excruciating acts of self-harm with a hot iron. But while the pairing of these two performers makes for compelling and impressively unsettling viewing, Carmoon does lose her way a bit as her film heads toward its home stretch, undermining some of its power by elongating its runtime to this degree and spinning its wheels a bit too much in the mire. Still, if Hoard is an imperfect film that unfortunately putters toward its finale, it’s also never less than a striking one, and Carmoon remains enticingly non-judgmental throughout, executing a difficult narrative with both boldness and a compassionate, even delicate, guiding hand.
DIRECTOR: Luna Carmoon; CAST: Saura Lightfoot Leon, Joseph Quinn, Hayley Squires, Lily-Beau, Leach; DISTRIBUTOR: Sunrise Films; IN THEATERS: September 6; RUNTIME: 2 hr. 6 min.
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