The Emotionally Raw 'Hoard' Is Messy & Cluttered
The British film industry has been producing striking debut films at an unfathomable rate over the last few years, and now that Hoard has premiered at the Venice Film Festival, we certainly can’t accuse them of all feeling the same. The London-set drama centers on Maria, who, as a child (played by Lily-Beau Leach), questions the confines of her world with her fiercely protective hoarder mother, Cynthia (Hayley Squires). After an accident that Maria believes kills her mother, the young girl grows up (now played by Saura Lightfoot Leon) under the care of an overworked, kind foster mother (Samantha Spiro).
When former foster child Michael (Stranger Things’ Joseph Quinn) intrudes on Maria’s adolescence, she lurches back towards behavior that, while unhealthy, may shed light on the dangerous love she shared with her mother.
Aggressive, off-kilter, and packing an emotional rawness that’s often sanded out of too-careful British dramas, Hoard savors the clutter and excretions of childhood trauma, more interested in destructive spirals than the calm equilibrium of healing. But while there’s a version of Hoard that could be a welcome jolt for British working-class stories, it’s unclear how from the finished product – at 126 minutes, Hoard stretches loosely mapped out psychology with a terminal lack of polish.
