Whether intentional or not, it’s only right that the latest from writer-director David Koepp (known for blockbusters like Jurassic Park, Spider-Man and Mission: Impossible), You Should Have Left, was released the weekend of Father’s Day. After all, it’s a tale about an “older daddy” named Theo Conroy (Kevin Bacon) struggling to cope with his jealousy over just about everything pertaining to his younger wife, Susanna (Amanda Seyfried). Their only child, Ella (Avery Essex), is particularly attached to her father, serving as the anchor of the overarching motif of the film, rooted entirely in Catholic guilt–which, mind you, is a completely different animal from regular guilt.
Because the theme of the movie is so heavily centered on the father-daughter dynamic (even in terms of remarking upon how much younger his wife is than him), it’s fitting to open the film on Ella, in a classic scene of a scared little girl alone in the darkness of her bedroom. Panicked over hearing the sound of something that’s gone bump in the night, Ella rises from her bed, cautiously calling out as an ominous shadow scuttles through the hallway. Terrified, she runs into another room where there’s a night light. Briefly relieved–believing that she’s safe–Ella’s breath is suddenly suspended by an old man who has materialized at her side. As he uses his otherworldly powers to keep her from speaking or breathing, he proceeds to make cryptic statements about her “daddy.”
As it turns out, this is all but a dream–Theo’s nightmare, to be exact. Waking up in a cold sweat has become his baseline normal as he turns to self-help meditations as a therapeutic means to grapple with his past, as well as a present in which his actress wife seems constantly to be working on a scene involving getting sexual with her co-star (not the best for keeping Theo’s latent rage in check).
As a retired investment banker, the notoriety Theo gained during the trial he endured after being accused of the murder of his first wife has not been forgotten by those he encounters in public. It eventually prompts Ella to ask her mother, “Why does everyone hate Daddy?” For hating him is unfathomable to her–she who sees him as a hero in his own right. With the the tensions between him and Susanna running high after he comes to the set and overhears her moaning in ecstasy for a sex scene, he suggests they get away from Los Angeles for a reprieve from it all. Susanna agrees, saying she has a few weeks before the next leg of the shoot in London. So it is that hell turns out to be nearby Wales (which hasn’t been played up in the best light of late, if we’re also going by a season three episode of The Crown called “Aberfan”–named in honor of the town where a horrific mining accident occurred). Even if Diana might have preferred to stay there in lieu of marrying Charles.
To be sure, as is usually the case with underlying infernos, the tableau of the village as they drive through it has a paradisiacal flair, inviting them to relish its lushness and serene aura. The house itself is stripped of any personal effects, heightening the modern minimalism of its design, as well as adding to the illusion of its spaciousness–a size which, as we soon see, can expand and contract depending on its mood.
A mood as mercurial as Theo’s own, who manages to pick a fight with Susanna early on during their stay. “Catholic school fucked you up real good, didn’t it?” she asks him after he apologizes to her for being so snappy. Little does she know, this apology only comes as a result of him going through her phone, tablet and computer in search of any telltale text messages or emails that might prove she’s cheating on him. Of course, this underestimates Susanna’s adeptness at secrecy, well-aware of Theo’s inherent paranoia, and the always unspoken fact that he might, indeed, have been responsible for killing his wife, who drowned in the bathtub after dosing herself with too many pills and chasing them with red wine. The bathtub image returns again and again throughout the movie, echoing scenes from both The Shining and What Lies Beneath. Not to mention the baptismal symbolism of it, as though Theo might one day be able to cleanse himself of his sins…if only he’ll acknowledge them in the first place.
Based on German author Daniel Kehlmann’s 2017 novel of the same name, You Should Have Left additionally comes across as Koepp and Bacon’s attempt to resuscitate the magic they created together for 1999’s Stir of Echoes (which, at the time, was still overshadowed by the likes of similar supernatural horror movies like The Sixth Sense and The Blair Witch Project), also based on a novel–in that instance, a 1958 one from Richard Matheson.
As for Ella, who is starting to see her father through a slightly different lens (sometimes more eerily than others, like when his shadow appears on the wall before he even enters her room), she begins to realize that hell isn’t being trapped in a space with your father, it’s being trapped in it with your father’s guilt raging inside of him to the point of manifesting a literal prison. “The sins of the father visit the children,” it is said at one point, to doubly underscore the Catholic vibe of it all.
As a film that cautions against allowing resentment and hatred to build so that it finally boils over in a hostile way, there can perhaps be no better message for Father’s Day Weekend. Not only because this is the dynamic that exists between so many spawns and their patriarch (in addition to romantic relationships that inevitably turn cold), but because Theo ultimately proves that his love for his daughter is so unconditional, so all-consuming that he is finally willing to make the greatest sacrifice in order to keep her safe. What’s more, the ever-present Electra complex is embedded into the implications of Theo wanting to do what’s best for his daughter as an example to her–for it is a girl’s father who sets the precedent for what she views as acceptable behavior in subsequent males she might seek a relationship with. Thus, You Should Have Left, whether it wants to be or not, is more of a Father’s Day movie than a horror one. Which is fine, considering Father’s Day starring Robin Williams and Billy Crystal grew stale long ago.
