Movie Review: Honeymoon

Honeymoon

Starring: Rose Leslie, Harry Treadaway
Directed by: Leigh Janiak
Rating: R
Run time: 87 minutes
Synopsis: A newlywed couple finds their lake-country honeymoon descend into chaos after Paul finds Bea wandering and disoriented in the middle of their first night.


What happens when you hire actors from two popular fantasy series and toss them into a remote setting? Ideally, magic. Rose Leslie is a talented young actress, best known for her role as Ygritte in HBO's Game of Thrones. Harry Treadaway plays the role of Victor Frankenstein in Showtime's Penny Dreadful. In reality, Honeymoon is a bit too unsure of what it wants to be to effectively produce the appropriate response from its audience. Psychological thriller would have worked far better than the route that the writer/director took. Let's break it down a bit without giving away anything not shown in the trailers.

Paul and Bea have just gotten married. They're very sweet together, recounting details of their courtship for their wedding video. Paul got sick on their first date. They were supposed to go camping, but she got sick. Sickness seems to play a part in their relationship quite a bit. This resulted in him building a tent out of their blankets over their bed and proposing beneath it. Rather than wedding cake, they chose cinnamon buns. Quirky and cute, these two seem destined for white picket fences and happily ever after.

Bea has chosen  to leave the city for their honeymoon to have alone time in her family's cabin. It's rustic, surrounded by woods and an expansive lake. Paul seems overwhelmed by this. How much did he know about his new wife? She can hunt, fish and did 12 years of girl scouts. Things take a turn for the strange when they meet a childhood friend of hers.

Paul responds to this new arrival with jealousy. It's not surprising with how horny he'd been. Is there a darker side to him than Bea realized? Paul made an earlier comment about her womb that lead to an awkward moment where they discuss whether he wants a baby. Later, he finds Bea naked and alone in the woods. Something is now different about her. Or is he the one who has changed?

A better script would have explored their relationship's decline better. What happened to Bea in the woods? Was she attacked by a stranger? Was it her childhood friend? Did her husband rape her? Is Paul losing his mind and unable to cope with his wife's trauma? These questions would have made the film far more rounded and fulfilling. Instead, we're saddled with a weak final half that resorts to body horror to get its point across. There's one major sequence that left me feeling very uneasy. Sadly, even that has been done before...and much better.

Rating: 2/5