Indie Movie Review – Adalynn

I’m not sure how widespread the concept of The Curate’s Egg is  but, just in case, it is something described as partly bad and partly good. In its original usage, it referred to something that is obviously and entirely bad, but is described out of politeness as nonetheless having good features that redeem it. Adalynn most definitely had redeeming qualities. However…

Adalynn is the story of a woman, the titular Adalynn (Sydney Carvill), who has just given birth and is struggling with postpartum depression. Her husband, Bill (Wade Baker) isn’t much help; apparently he was wonderful during the pregnancy but now she feels he has earned a rest and so is doing all the two hourly feeds by herself. So she struggles on. It is bad enough while he is there but then he has to away to a conference. That is when things really start going wrong.

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My Mother Groaned My Father Wept

The positive thing about this Curate’s Egg is that the quality of the film itself was excellent. Nicely shot, edited, and acted. There were times when Ms Carvill demonstrated the mental state of her character by instantly flicking between one emotion and another. She’s an actor , that’s her job I hear you muttering but that doesn’t mean that I can’t compliment her on a job well done! She was ably assisted by Wade Baker and the two of them, pretty much, carried the production.

My problem came with the storyline. The essence of it is that Adalynn is struggling. It is established early on that she has had mental problems that needed medicating. As she is feeding baby Elizabeth, she can’t have anything that would affect her milk; booze, coffee, anti-psychotics, etc. I thought that part of the reason that hubby got to sleep all night was because he didn’t have the necessary chest accessories to do a two a.m. feed. But, nope! The baby was bottle fed. I put this down to the famous American nipple phobia.

Into The Dangerous World I Leapt

So that lazy lummox could have helped out! Mind you, I did wonder why Adalynn was setting two hourly alarms to go and feed the baby. I know that really early and small premature babies need precise regular feeds but two weeks early and at 6lbs 8oz birth weight doesn’t need that. The consensus was that you feed the baby when it cries otherwise you’ll never get a full night’s sleep!

To be honest, I’m not sure whether or not “Horror” was an accurate description for Adalynn. There are moments when there are horror tropes on show but this is due to the circumstances surrounding the denouement which I’m trying avoid spoiling! However, it could do with a trigger warning. All in all Adalynn is a reasonable piece of entertainment despite the stuff that looks like plot holes but ends up being obvious as the story unwinds.

Movie Grade: C+

Rob Williams

Former teacher, lecturer, homelessness administrator, pharmacy dispenser now happily retired, happily married, and a very happy granddad. I live next to the Mersey but on the side Daniel Craig and Taron Egerton come from rather than the side the Beatles came from!