Film Review: YOU WON’T BE ALONE: Intense Dramatic Film is Also the Artsiest Horror Film You’ll Ever See [Sundance 2022]

You Won’t Be Alone Review

You Won’t Be Alone (2022) Film Review from the 44th Annual Sundance Film Festival, a movie directed by Goran Stolevski and starring Noomi Rapace, Alice Englert, Anamaria Marinca, Sara Klimoska, Felix Maritaud, Arta Dobroshi, Carloto Cotta, Irena Ristic, Kamka Tocinovski, Daniel Kovacevic and Verica Nedeska.

Director Goran Stolevski’s new film, You Won’t Be Alone, is bold, unique, daring and skillfully made. Unfortunately, it is also very disturbing to watch in certain scenes making it hard to sit through at times. Luckily, I was so fascinated by the movie’s premise that I kept watching even if looking away from the screen was unavoidable at least a couple of times throughout the film. The artistry of the picture cannot be denied. It’s almost like Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life meets Robert Eggers’ The Witch but to compare it to those two films would also undermine the artistic integrity of You Won’t Be Alone. It’s an ambitious project that is not easy to ignore whether you love it or hate it.

As the movie opens, a baby is born to a woman named Yoana (Kamka Tocinovski) in a village during the 19th-century. We meet an ugly-looking woman called Old Maid Maria (AKA the Wolf-Eateress) who has scars that make her presence very distinct and terrifying. She’s almost like a female Freddy Krueger from the A Nightmare on Elm Street movies. Old Maid Maria (played quite effectively by Anamaria Marinca) wants possession of Yoana’s female baby. Though the mother manages to strike a raw deal with Maria to keep the baby until she grows up to be 16-years-old, the child is forced to live in a cave where the mother hides her. Old Maid Maria takes possession of the wild child as a teenager and makes her mute and an immortal witch. It is apparent that the child, whose name is Nevena (Sara Klimoska), can now become another entity but if she chooses to take over another host, the person/animal she takes over will die.

Noomi Rapace plays an everyday mom/farmer’s wife named Bosilka whose body Nevena takes over after killing her. She acts tremendously odd in her new form which leaves the villagers assuming the behavior is because Bosilka’s husband is abusing her which he is. Rapace expertly conveys the idea that another woman is inhabiting her body and Rapace’s performance is certainly among her most interesting performances to date. Rapace brings the requisite awkwardness to the character that makes us believe she is Nevena who, after all, grew up in a cave.

Carloto Cotta serves as a handsome guy named Boris who Nevena experiences sexuality through in ways that are quite unique and intriguing to watch. A sex scene here in this film can remind one of the sex sequence in Midsommar although I think the one in this film is even more wild and bizarre.

Nevena takes over the body of a dog earlier in the film as well, but it is in the form of Biliana (Alice Englert) that she finds her final home making a choice to stay put. Nevena is a fascinating character to behold as we see her abilities to live life through the different hosts she inhabits. Old Maid Maria’s background is also an important piece to the puzzle this movie presents to the viewer. Old Maid Maria is never far behind Nevena and the scarred woman is always the most complex character in the picture for various reasons that are unveiled throughout the movie.

Of course, this movie’s main premise is designed to show the many varied types of lives that are lived and how they are experienced by a being who starts out female and explores life in both its human form (male and female) and animal form. It’s an ambitious film which is, too many times, downgraded by its display of violence and the fear of harm towards babies.

That being said, the acting is mostly terrific. Rapace, Englert, Marinca and Klimoska are all amazing under Stolevski’s guidance and these performers take risks that should be commended for this movie may have seemed like one that could have been a completely obscure project. It is more accessible than that because today’s audiences are more mature and more likely to embrace the material than if it were released say 20 years ago. Nevertheless, the movie’s graphic nature is a little overwhelming at times which could limit the film’s audience but the movie will certainly find an appreciative crowd to embrace it.

You Won’t Be Alone is a one-of-a-kind movie-going experience despite the fact that it does seem to have taken some inspiration from past films’s styles of movie-making. Stolevski’s film is an acquired taste for sure but it’s a picture that, as previously stated, is hard to ignore.

Rating: 7/10

Leave your thoughts on this You Won’t Be Alone review and the film below in the comments section. Readers seeking to support this type of content can visit our Patreon Page and become one of FilmBook’s patrons. Readers seeking more Sundance Film Festival news can visit our Sundance Film Festival Page, our Film Festival Page, and our Film Festival Facebook Page. Readers seeking more film reviews can visit our Movie Review Page, our Movie Review Twitter Page, and our Movie Review Facebook Page. Want up-to-the-minute notifications? FilmBook staff members publish articles by Email, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, Reddit, and Flipboard.