| Director(s) | André Øvredal |
| Principal Cast | Emile Hirsch as Austin Brian Cox as Tommy Olwen Kelly as Jane Doe Ophelia Lovibond as Emma Michael McElhatton as Sheriff Burke |
| Release Date | 2014 |
| Language(s) | English |
| Running Time | 86 minutes |
The title sequence opens up on words slowly being revealed under layers of dirt. As each member of the movie is revealed, their name and role is blown away by the wind until finally the title of the movie shows for a brief few seconds.
The camera cuts to an outside view of a house- fuzzy and upside down. As the shot slowly reorients itself to look normal the movie cuts to outside of the house, changing from a point of view shot to an establishing shot. This is a hint of things to come- an agency that has just been unearthed that remains in the background – disrupting the objectivity of what is to occur.
Sherrif Burke enters the house – the scene of a crime that he and his crew can’t seem to figure out. As the camera slowly moves throughout the abode, revealing the badly damaged and bloodied corpses all around, it eventually ends up in the basement where Burke discovers a clean and unsullied female corpse, preserved under a layer of dirt. Compared to the mutilated bodies aboveground, this Jane Doe has absolutely no sign of external injury. Baffled by the strange discovery, Burke moves the body town to the Tilden funeral home, eager to get a cause of death by the morning.
The movie cuts to the funeral home which is run by Tommy, an older and emotionally jaded man, and his younger and more optimistic son, Austin. Before showcasing the father-son duo at work, the camera establishes the setting for the audience, weaving through the mazelike hallway. This home for the dead zigs and zags with very little room to maneuver around. There’s only one way up and out of the underground dwelling – an elevator that whirs with power as it moves. The camera constantly showcases a curved mirror on the corner of one of the hallways, which gives a reflection that seems to only give impressions of what it sees. Eventually the camera settles on Tommy and Austin performing an autopsy on a badly burned body, as the radio plays in the background giving their morbid work a moreupbeat soundtrack. The latter is goaded into giving his own assessment before being corrected by his father, who reminds him their job is not to figure out why a cadaver is there but instead to figure out how it got to the position its in. It’s clear there’s an disconnect between the two as Tommy injects a sympathy into his work for the deceased as opposed to his father who rationally approaches the work, determined to get to the bottom of each as. As he reminds his son afterwards, every body has a secret. Some are just better at hiding them than others. These words gain a haunting resonance as the movie continues, becoming the thematic thread that ties the relevant sub-plots together. It is just as they finish up with the corpse at their table, that Burke shows up at their location with Jane Doe.
As Austin is just about to leave for the night to go on a date with his partner, Emma, he feels a sense of guilt at leaving his father alone to deal with a fresh new corpse and postpones his rendezvous in order to help his dad out. As evidence by his playful pleading with Emma, this is commonplace behavior, as Austin feels the need to take care of his father after the loss of his mother. He ventures back down to the autopsy room and takes his place with Tommy, eager to finish the nights work and get to more pleasant activities. They begin the autopsy with gusto, intrigued by the unmarred body that is somehow dead. As they perform their procedural tests, the camera cuts to Jane Doe, imbuing with her with a strange sense of agency despite her appearance. During the procedure, the radio the Tildens have on continues to blare their upbeat and positive music.
However, the music quickly changes to “Open Up Your Heart (And Let the Sunshine In)” when Tommy gets to ready to perform invasive procedures on the body.
As the song continues, the movie once again cuts to Jane Doe, as though she has something to do with the random occurrence. The odd choice of song becomes especially eerie in contrast to the brutal precision by which her body is torn apart. The Tildens are baffled by a series of impossible discoveries- injuries on the inside of the body that would be impossible to inflict onto someone without some reflection on the outside only scratch at the surface of the rabbit hole they go down. The deeper they prod, the stranger circumstances at the funeral home seem to get. The radio constantly switches to either to “Open Up Your Heart (And Let the Sunshine In)” or a news report that indicates that there’s a massive amount of flooding happening, a strange juxtaposition between sunshine and dampening rainfall to match with the strange contrast between the pristine condition of Jane’s body versus her brutal internal injuries. The whole time, the camera lingers on Jane’s gaze, which penetrates the audience as if she’s watching and controlling the situation around her. If Tommy’s statement about secrets is correct, then what nefarious truth is being hidden by a body whose presence can force a radio to play a song about sunshine whenever her cadaver is further ripped apart.
Matching the strange occurrences happening within the autopsy room are the eerie sounds of bells and movements outside in the hallways. Early on Tommy reveals that in the past, bodies had bells tied around their ankles so that mistaken comatose people could ring and indicate they were alive as opposed to dead. As things ramp up, these noises become more and more prominent, prompting some intense investigation scenes which constantly amp up the tension. Images are reflected on the curved mirror, never clear enough for us or the character’s to get a good view of who or what is roaming through the halls. This interplay – Jane’s face staring at the camera, the radio switching from happy song to eerie news story, reflections in the mirror, creepy noises abound, and the autopsy proper- keeps the movie flowing at a steady pace all while keeping the audiences creeped out. There’s never a moment for us to breathe a sigh of relief. That’s what I call effective horror filmmaking.
This is a movie about assumptions and the way we play into into them willingly and/or unknowingly. These assumptions are based on information that’s available to us and the way it matches up with the presuppositions we have about the world around, which lead us to to radically different interpretations of the same event. At the level of the main story Tommy’s interpretations of Jane’s condition are based on his rationalistic and procedural interpretation of the way bodies react to physical stimuli. He’s obsessed with explaining how an unblemished body on the outside can host such disgusting injuries within. Meanwhile Austin’s interpretation is based on trying to place Jane within a context that explains why this even happened to her. As Tommy noted earlier, if everyone has secrets and those secrets are hidden, then how do these interpretations find a finality? They’re based on what an agent wants us to know about them which might radically differ from what we “should” know about them. This struggle to discover Jane’s truth bleeds over to the Tildens’ struggle to understand one another and their own shared trauma, tying the supernatural investigation to an emotional center we can relate to. The plot points build on and contrasts one another in a dialect of interpretation that really hits home the importance of not taking anything for granted.
If there’s an issue with the film’s story structure, it has more to do when certain emotional moments are revealed as opposed to the reveals themselves. There’s obviously a tension and emotional bond between the father-son duo that’s constantly hinted and teased at. There’s a reason Tommy is doting on his dad and a reason his dad is so focused on his work and unable to open up. Up to the second act, this secretive bond is slowly prodded open, revealing the heart of what’s going on. However, the movie ramps the pace of the reveal up unexpectedly and jarringly in the third act, as it comes directly after another unrelated emotionally jarring incident involving the two characters. Compared to the slow and effective pacing up to then, the simultaneous gut punch loses efficacy because there’s not enough time for the characters or us to process the importance of what’s being said. Substantively, the revelation is fantastic – it ties into the themes of the story and compliments the final reveals related to Jane Doe. The issue is it structurally feels haphazard which removes a lot of the heft it could have packed.
However, despite this slight misstep there is still an emotional resonance the movie manages to tap into due the acting power of its main duo. Brian Cox’s may portray a cold and unopen father for most of the movie, but he constantly makes it apparent he cares for Hirsch’s character through the way he smiles at his son’s growth in the autopsy craft or through his concern for his son’s health as things get dicer in the story. Watching him make the decisions he does in the third act tug at heartstrings and feel earned despite the rushed emotional reveal I talked about earlier. He shows a genuine care in his eyes that makes you realize in spite of his stoicism, he possesses a deep love for his last remaining family. Meanwhile, Hirsch perfectly encapsulates the role of a son who’s desperate to help his father, but unable to find a way how. He shows a stubbornness in his demeanor that makes sense given the way he’s “bossed” around on the job but never lets that collapse into a frustration. Their performances naturally compliment one another and their believable relationship is what gives the movie’s ending as much power as it has.
That being said, the star of the movie is Olwen Kelly, who manages to terrify the audience despite never moving an inch from the operating table she’s placed on. It would have been easy to go for a dummy. It is a movie about performing an autopsy on a dead body. However, Øvredal’s decision to go with a live actor is what makes the cuts to Kelly’s face so unnerving. The reason she feels alive – the reason a cadaver feels like it has a genuine agency in the events of the movie – is because the camera is on an actress and not some synthetic stand-in. Despite being naked, Øvredal’s camera never exploits the actor and constantly positions her in a way that makes her the center of the room. Even when her breasts are exposed on frame, they’re never the focal point. It’s always her gaze – a pair of cloudy eyes that are impossible to read but seemingly rip into the soul of the audience. There are no “sexy” shots. It’s all about respect, and as a result Kelly manages to give a lifeless, immobile character a sense of power and presence without ever moving a muscle. That’s good filmmaking and a testament to the importance of acting in the most subtle ways.
Does the movie nail every punch it throws? No. But when the journey is as unsettling and powerful as this one turns out to be, that’s a minor complaint. If you’re looking for a supernatural flick that’s willing to subvert your expectations in ways that are earned as opposed to cheap or are just looking for a movie that gets under your skin, look no further. The secrets hidden beneath the surface of The Autopsy of Jane Doe are worth digging into.
REPORT CARD
| TLDR | The Autopsy of Jane Doe is a supernatural thriller that proves tight execution and meaningful camera work are all that’s necessary to unnerve and creep out audiences. The story of a father-son duo desperate to figure out the secrets of a deceased Jane Doe invites the audience to think critically about secrets and whether or not we can ever really know someone as well as we think we do. There’s an emotional heft, disturbing visual scares, and an constant sense that something’s wrong. Plus, Olwen Kelly manages to give an unmoving corpse a sense of agency and character. That should be reason enough for any genre fan to check this one out. |
| Rating | 9.3/10 |
| Grade | A |
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