The Ones Below

With music that places us instantly, and somewhat crudely, in Rosemary's Baby terrain, writer and theatre director David Farr's screen debut explores pregnancy-related paranoia. Clémence Poésy and Stephen Campbell Moore play soon-to-be parents who are intrigued when a more ostentatious expectant couple (Laura Birn and David Morrissey) move in downstairs. It's fertile territory, with the jealousy, judgement, competitiveness and anxiety that can plague pregnancy covered, and there are uncomfortable truths at its heart, with a dinner-table scene that bristles with passive-aggressive menace. Unfortunately, Farr's handling of the themes is desperately unsubtle, the relationship between the central couple is frustratingly underdeveloped, and the film's melodramatic tendencies are at odds with its ice-cool visuals. Birn is creepy and Poésy sympathetic, but both are compromised by the erratic material. Morrissey is brooding but underused and a similarly poorly employed Campbell Moore descends into cringing theatrics just as he's required to come into his own. The Ones Below takes a sledgehammer to a delicate subject, offering neither chills nor insight.