You Won’t Be Alone (CREDIT: Branko Starcevic/Focus Features)
Starring: Noomi Rapace, Anamaria Marinca, Alice Englert, Carloto Cotta, Félix Maritaud, Sara Klimoska
Director: Goran Stolevski
Running Time: 108 Minutes
Rating: R for Violence, Blood, and Sexaul Content – All Involving Witches
Release Date: April 1, 2022 (Theaters)
You Won’t Be Alone is the type of movie that will make you feel like your mind has been altered if you look away for just a minute. And honestly, that’s a big part of the gnarly appeal. Time jumps ahead without any hand holding, while major characters shapeshift all over the place. Not to mention it’s in a language I’m unfamiliar with, though I’d be surprised if any native Macedonian speakers find it straightforward. So go ahead and watch You Won’t Be Alone while you’re fighting insomnia or in the middle of a bleary-eyed food coma. Or if you’re a recreational drug user, consider this an ideal opportunity to indulge. But even if you’re fully awake and 100% sober, the odds are still high that your brain will be squeezed into another dimension.
For a description a little more straightforward, here’s the logline from the film’s PR team:
“Set in an isolated mountain village in 19th century Macedonia, YOU WON’T BE ALONE follows a young girl who is kidnapped and then transformed into a witch by an ancient spirit. Curious about life as a human, the young witch accidentally kills a peasant in the nearby village and then takes her victim’s shape to live life in her skin. Her curiosity ignited, she continues to wield this horrific power in order to understand what it means to be human.”
My response to reading that after watching the movie is, “Oh. I guess that’s what happened.” If I were pitching it, I would personally probably keep it a little simpler and say something like: the hallucinogenic cultural subconscious of fairy tales spills out phantasmagorically across the European woodlands. The bottom line is, Macedonian-Australian writer-director Goran Stolevski is throwing together a wide array of influences here that are bound to satisfy widescreen-loving cineastes, as well as English majors who tend toward the sylvan supernatural.
If it sounds like I’m being vague about what actually happens in this movie, well, that’s because I’m a little wary of describing anything concretely for fear of totally misinterpreting everything. But don’t let that scare you away! Sometimes it’s okay to let a film confound you, and it’s also totally okay to ask someone else what happened. And if your buddies don’t know either, you can try to figure it out together! After all, you shouldn’t have to feel alone while watching You Won’t Be Alone.
You Won’t Be Alone is Recommended If You Like: Midsommar, The Witch, Grimm fairy tales, Terrence Malick
Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Witches
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