Puffball

Oldschool director Nicolas Roeg's new film Puffball presents a supernatural encounter with down home country living. Liffey (Kelly Reilly) has purchased a cottage in the British countryside. She is a professional architect and hopes to transform her new dwelling into a stunning home. But along the way, partner Richard (Oscar Pearce) impregnates her, which becomes confusing after she sleeps with neighbour Tucker (William Houston). Tucker's wife Mabs (Miranda Richardson) has been trying to have a baby with no luck. Mabs's mother has been trying to encourage her fertility by using a number of superstitious potions, with no success, leaving them to believe that the potion worked on Liffey by accident. As time passes, tension builds and only a guardian angel can ward off the demons.

Puffball's certainly not on par with Roeg's earlier work (Performance, The Man Who Fell to Earth), but its creepy alienated sensibility is well crafted. Throughout, Roeg explores themes of individuality, aging, birth, regeneration, revenge, and fidelity contextualized within a supernatural frame. And there's puffballs. I really don't know what's going on with the puffballs.

Puffball certainly doesn't leave you feeling warm and fuzzy, or even mildly upbeat, but the characters are strong, the text multilayered, the red herrings salty, and the vision uniform. Great for the third day of rain or after an early 1980's Roger Waters marathon.