Gretel & Hansel

Directed by Osgood Perkins, Gretel & Hansel follows the title characters (Sophia Lillis’ Gretel and Samuel J. Leakey’s Hansel) as they take refuge within a mysterious old crone’s (Alice Krige) remote house. Filmmaker Perkins, working from Rob Hayes’ script, admittedly does a nice job of initially drawing the viewer into the deliberate proceedings, as Gretel & Hansel kicks off with a promising opening stretch that effectively establishes the movie’s central characters and the gothic landscape in which they exist – with Perkins certainly receiving plenty of mileage out of Galo Olivares’ spooky cinematography and Robin Coudert’s ominous score. It’s clear, however, that the picture eventually segues into an abstract and entirely momentum-free midsection that contains few, if any, elements worth embracing, and there’s little doubt, certainly, that Perkins’ style-over-substance approach paves the way for a second half that couldn’t possibly be less involving (and more interminable). And although the undeniably striking atmosphere might hold some appeal for certain viewers, Gretel & Hansel‘s pervasively ostentatious, affected sensibilities ensure that it would likely work better as an avant-garde art-installation than as a (decidedly endless) feature film.

1/2* out of ****