By Dolores Quintana
Grief is the price of love.
Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou’s second feature film, Bring Her Back, is as much of a marvel as their first film, Talk to Me. The Australian twin directors were wise to decide to pursue a different story rather than simply make the sequel to Talk to Me that many people probably wanted.
During the U.S. premiere of the film, held at the Aero Theater, hosted by Beyond Fest and the American Cinematheque, Danny Philippou said that Talk to Me was a “party horror film” and that Bring Her Back was more of “a slow burn that is committed to a different kind of energy” and that it is much more “personal” which describes the film accurately. I commend the twins for following their creative urge to explore a different vibe with this film rather than merely cloning what has already worked.
The synopsis: A brother and sister uncover a terrifying ritual at the secluded home of their new foster mother. The film stars Billy Barratt, Sora Wong, Jonah Wren Phillips, Sally-Anne Upton, Stephen Phillips, Mischa Heywood, and Sally Hawkins.
You can watch the trailer here:
This is a very rewarding film and a creative leap for the brothers. Here’s what I wrote as a reaction to the film after I had sat, troubled, at a table at 1212 Santa Monica for about twenty minutes.
lyrical. beautiful. soaked in blood and tears. walking into an antechamber of hell on earth. the power of grief to twist your soul and the essential goodness of certain humans. the twisted hand of fate. the power of love. a work of art.
You can purchase tickets here.
Sally Hawkins plays a lovely and eccentric woman who, under normal circumstances, anyone would want as their friend or their wacky aunt. However, knifed in the gut by unresolved grief, her character, Laura, is propelled by a fanatical belief that she can change the unchangeable.
The Philippous and their casting director, Nikki Barrett (Mad Max: Fury Road, Talk to Me, Furiosa: A Mad Max Story, and The Babadook) have assembled a marvelous cast, especially the three young actors at the center of the story, Billy Barratt, Sora Wong, and Jonah Wren Phillips. Together with Sally Hawkins, they will wring tears from your stony heart after making you care about them as people.
While I don’t want to give away too much about where the story goes, the major theme of the film is grief. Our society shies away from emotion, seeing many types of emotion as irrational and destructive. Emotions like anger and grief are seen as negative, while emotions like love are seen as positive.
However, this film shows you how love can make you do terrible things. Grief is the price of love because when love ends either through abandonment or death, unless you never feel love, you will suffer the torments of the damned when your loved ones are ripped away. There’s no way around it, either you don’t love, or at some point, you come to terms with grief and the inevitability of death.
The only way out of such emotions is, as they say, is through. While many people refuse to deal with their emotions, long-term, the denial is destructive to them and to those whom they harm through their unhealed grief. To be able to understand and deal with such crushing feelings, you must feel them fully until you understand them. No one wants that kind of pain, but it is the only way.
To turn away from life and the possibility of happiness after such a tragic loss is tempting, but in the case of the story of this film, it leads to compounding tragedy. By grasping for what you have lost, you risk losing everything you have.
The beauty of Bring Her Back is its deep understanding of humanity, both the good and the bad. Sometimes people who do bad things aren’t bad people, they are just misled and in pain. They can’t or won’t see the light of new beginnings because they are too busy looking down into the grave of their hopes and dreams.
Bring Her Back seems to pulse in an eerie world divorced from where the rest of us live. The Philippous and co-writer Bill Hinzman have cut the action off, for the most part, and Laura’s home might as well be in another dimension or another planet, because it is. Grief isolates you, and the symbolism of the film’s setting, an otherworldly plane, is a stunning touch.
Other symbols are there too, eyes, both unseeing and terrified, circles, rain, and panes of glass abound. The panes of glass show the classic dilemma: the hungry person, in this case, hungry for a lost love or a lost self, separates the character piteously. The characters both look in and out, desperately desiring whatever is on the other side of the glass until the glass is broken over and over again, but it gives no relief.
Bring Her Back is filled with sadness, but also an ineffable and unsinkable hope that things could be different. The love of the foster children for each other is that banked fire that can easily erupt into consuming flames. It is fun, as the characters get to know each other, and the tragedy hurts all the more because you see what could have been.
Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou’s second film is one of the best films of 2025 and shows that the brothers’ talents should not be underestimated. Stunning, raw, yet comfy as a warm sweater, until the moment when it steals the breath from your lungs. Powerful and truthful filmmaking that comes from the soul and the mind. It gets my highest recommendation.
