We Are What We Are

• We Are What We Are, by writer/director Jim Mickle, is not a horror film.
• Something that is neither meritorious nor discreditable, but ought be recognized so as to properly set expectations.
• At it’s core, this is a family drama that sprinkles in some allegory and plenty of gore.
• And is mostly effective, in no small part courtesy of well developed central characters. Rose (Julia Garner) and Iris (Ambyr Childers) are multi-dimensional, and we emotionally connect with both of them.
• Frank (Bill Sage) is less complex than his daughters, but the film doesn’t suffer for it. He is a zealot, an ideologue, and so he ought be unflinchingly certain his behavior is proper, no matter its immorality.
• All three actors match the screenplay’s quality, especially Julia Garner whose every expression channels regret mixed with determination and hope. She stumbles ever so slightly in the picture’s climax, as she cries, but it is a minor misstep that doesn’t reduce the overall standout quality of her performance.
• Mickle and co-writer Nick Damici make a few mistakes, most of them involving the youngest child, Rory (Jack Gore). Too often Rory’s only role is to sit passively when his family takes action, even though he’s supposedly fearful. As one example, when Rose throws his dinner on the floor, Rory doesn’t react. He simply sits in place, looking placid. Thanks to such scripted non-responses, the brother feels less like a character and more like a plot device, meant to heighten sympathy for Rose and Iris.
• The problem: such artificial sympathizers are unnecessary. The two daughters are so well developed and the actors so effective that Rory becomes superfluous.
• Mickle and Damici also under explain the Parker family’s long history. Are they inbreeding? If not, how do the patriarchs find mates to continue the family line? The question is doubly true of Frank, given that he’s the on-screen antagonist. How did he attract his wife, Emma (Kassie Wesley DePaiva), in the first place?
• To some degree, thematic allegory mitigates this flaw. The Parkers effectively show us that monsters are not born; they are made. Still, explaining Emma and Frank’s relationship would have served We Are What We Are.
• As would have developing Doc (Michael Parks, the film’s other standout actor) more three-dimensionally. Doc often propels the plot, but he isn’t as psychologically layered as Rose and Iris.
• All the same, We Are What We Are has many more merits than flaws, one of them being that it impressively shows not tells; every reveal, every development is skillfully foreshadowed.
• Moreover, the movie’s resolution is thematically and narratively perfect, so perfect that it might be the best ending of 2013.
• Final Grade: B+