Jakob's Wife (2021)

directed by Travis Stevens

USA

98 minutes

3.5 stars out of 5

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Last night I had a dream that I was watching a vampire movie, so I woke up and found myself a vampire movie. This was not my first choice, but I couldn't resist the pull of Barbara Crampton and Larry Fessenden acting opposite each other. Perceptive viewers might also spot Bonnie Aarons not being a nun for a change.

So the basic idea at the beginning of this is fairly standard, and quite old as far as vampire narratives go: The passive wife of a minister encounters a powerful vampire and is converted to vampirism herself, and through her new identity as a vampire she discovers for the first time how to be independent. Vampirism is used as a metaphor for empowerment, as Anne finally gains the power to speak up and get what she wants. I expected this movie to be a lot trashier than it was judging by people's reactions to it, and it does have some moments where the dialogue is a little suspect, but Barbara Crampton is the queen of that stuff- she has a way of putting herself so firmly inside the character that she almost seems ignorant of how ridiculous what she's saying is, but you know she's not, because it always works so well. The effect of that in this particular instance is that the semi-trashy stuff she says conveys more about her character's personality than it does about the quality of the script.

There's a shift, or a transition, or just a slight change in tone, that happens midway through this film that signals it's on a different trajectory than the one you expect from this kind of premise. When Jakob finds out that his wife is a vampire, he does not react with the utter revulsion that you typically see in vampire movies. Any other movie would have him get eaten almost instantly, years of pent-up rage and subservience overwhelming Anne's humanity and causing her to turn on him first. Instead you get these deeply funny moments where he reacts to his wife's changed state with at first a willingness to help that is very endearing (the matter-of-fact way he's like "ok I'm gonna go kill this guy and then change you back") and then with begrudging, but total, acceptance, like how a narrow-minded but loving husband might react to his wife coming home with a nose ring. Not fear and hatred but an honest attempt to understand. "You could freak out and turn into a bat or something, I don't know." Even from the start, the film doesn't ever write him as totally awful, but I was still expecting him to become the antagonist, and instead he turns into an unlikely ally.

From when Anne comes clean with Jakob, this movie turns into something much bigger and more important than just a vampire film. The core of it becomes these two people's ability to reconcile and heal their marriage. Not in a corny way, because this typically is not seen in a movie you expect to just be about a lady who turns into a vampire. And it's not framed as if the empowerment that Anne experiences is worthless at best and dangerous at worst- actually the opposite. The fact that she's able to experience the kind of life she wants to live and realize what she wants for herself is what lets her come back to her marriage able to demand space for herself, and contrary to what you would expect, her husband respects that space and realizes a lot of her unhappiness was his fault. And is willing to work to make a better life for both of them. It's also incredibly refreshing and rare to see a movie with two middle-aged leads where they're not presented as dry and lifeless but have opportunities to be intimate and sensual. Older bodies are not the punchline of a joke but are shown with all the wants and thoughts of everyone, everywhere. "Wholesome" is a word too often trotted out when a work of fiction wants to ignore nuance and create something blandly pleasant, but I would feel okay calling this movie wholesome for its depiction of a happy (and only a little gory... okay, maybe a lot gory) resolution to marital problems.

I'm not saying that this is the best movie I've ever seen, but it goes places that I really rarely ever see. That kind of mutual appreciation and realizing how to communicate and foster a relationship where both people are equals is a genuine scarcity on film. Relationships are usually depicted as black-and-white; communication is not really required as it's expected that both parties should be mind-readers and if one fails to meet the other's needs they should leave immediately without attempting to convey what they want. I have a lot of feelings about this movie that are separate from its overall quality as a movie, which was average. The vampire stuff was really just a sidenote.