Netflix Review - Things Heard & Seen (2021)

From the minds of filmmaking duo/real-life husband and wife Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini comes a new Netflix creation, the intriguingly titled Things Heard & Seen. Though the film may technically be categorized as a ghost thriller of sorts, Berman and Pulcini have their sights set on narrative ambitions that transcend the one-trick trappings of a traditional horror movie; while a good portion of modern genre entries focus almost entirely on attempting to frighten the audience by any means necessary, Things Heard & Seen forgoes the pursuit of superficial scares and cheap chills in favour of a deeper, more philosophical approach to supernatural cinema.

The film centers around the Claire family and their transition from the hustle and bustle of New York City to a quainter existence among the fields and farm folk upstate. The main players of the story are Catherine (Amanda Seyfried), an artist, and George (James Norton), an art professor, a couple whose relationship has begun to wither beneath the weight of their dishonesty despite the sheen of domestic bliss that they portray to the rest of the world.

Caught in the middle of Catherine and George’s complicated dynamic is their young daughter, Franny (Ana Sophia Heger). The situation grows even more cumbersome for the Claire’s when Catherine comes to believe that their new country home is haunted. And if we’ve learned anything from horror movies, it’s that haunted houses are never conducive for a healthy marriage.

For its endeavour to achieve something decidedly different in the realm of mainstream horror, Things Heard & Seen should undoubtedly be commended. It’s apparent to anyone well-versed in the particulars of the horror genre that Berman and Pulcini did not set out to make a horror film in the traditional sense of the phrase. Instead, they strove to tell a very human story about a failing marriage that just so happens to contain spiritual elements that serve to mirror and accentuate the goings on of the Claire’s.

As a result, I would hesitate to even classify this new Netflix original as a horror movie. It’s a methodically-paced and confidently written dramatic thriller whose splashes of recognizable horror tropes are used exclusively in service of the film’s larger narrative rather than momentary jolts of fleeting excitement.

With that said, I cannot help but imagine large swaths of Netflix s scratching their heads and checking their watches as they sit in front of Things Heard & Seen, their desire for a slightly more conventional ghost story left unsaturated by a movie far more pensive and restrained in nature than is the norm for horror flicks nowadays. To the credit of anyone who might hold this particular opinion, portions of the film did prove to be somewhat plodding, the dramatic momentum of the story not always in full swing despite the best intentions of the filmmakers to keep things focused.

Berman and Pulcini attempted to make a horror movie that stands out from much of what the genre has to offer these days, and certainly succeeded in that venture. Its thematic musings are not as consistently profound and engaging as they may have wanted, but Things Heard & Seen is well-acted and compelling enough regardless that I can give it a solid recommendation to horror diehards and neophytes alike.