Movie Review: 'The Yellow Wallpaper' is Haunting and Tense

The Yellow Wallpaper opens on a shocking sight. A family of three is in a carriage on their way to a country home for the summer. A mother, a father, and a small baby that will not stop crying. After the husband demands that the wife do something about the crying baby, she picks up the child and hurls it out of the window of the movie carriage. It’s a striking scene, one deeply symbolic of the rest of the movie which takes on postpartum depression through the lens of a horror movie.

The Yellow Wallpaper stars Alexandra Loreth as Jane, a young mother struggling in the wake of the birth of her first child. Once a promising writer, Jane has been forced to give up her chosen profession to be a mother and the conflict this causes inside her begins to rot her. Jane’s husband, John (Joe Mullins), is a doctor who spends most of his time away from home treating patients other than his wife. He’s left Jane’s care to their housekeeper, Mary (Clara Harte), who is deeply ill-equipped for the task.

John is not an uncaring husband, rather just one who was born and bred as a misogynist, typical of the period setting. He comes from a time when women weren’t allowed to work, their job was to play broodmare to rich men. That’s not a defense of his behavior, he’s awful, it’s just an explanation of his role in this story, he’s an idiot and a male supremacist. Mental health was not exactly a well known concern at the time but it was especially hard on women who were told that any problem they had could be solved through being sedated, bed-ridden, and belittled for their supposed lack of physical fortitude.

The house meanwhile, is covered in garish and truly awful yellow wallpaper and Jane is convinced it holds some sort of curse. On the first night, she is awakened by screaming that only she can hear. Meanwhile, the film employs an atonal and unsettling soundtrack to keep up the tension and disquiet. You might be wondering about the baby? We never really know what’s up with the kid. Jane’s depression manifests in her not wanting to see or spend time with her baby. This is not an uncommon mark of postpartum depression, from what I have read.

In fact, the feeling of not wanting to be around a baby after giving birth to the baby becomes a roundabout form of furthering depression as shame feeds and deepens the sadness. Again, of course, I am not speaking from a place of expertise, just empathy. The Yellow Wallpaper does well not to overplay this story element and allow Jane’s depression to speak through the horror movie touches, the soundtrack, sound design, and Alexandra Loreth’s haunted performance.

The Yellow Wallpaper is based on a short story from the late 1890s by Charlotte Perkins Gilpin. While that story benefits from the main character's confinement to one room, underlining her growing madness from staring at the same four ugly, yellow walls, the film has to rely heavily on Alexandra Loreth to convey both the grip of depression but also a crazed frustration that builds into a slow burning mania that is deeply compelling and frightening to watch.

The Yellow Wallpaper is about a woman going mad because there is seemingly nowhere else to go. No one believes her depression or takes her mental health seriously, she’s often confined to her bed or chooses to be in bed so as to dream of something close to escape. Alexandra Loreth does an exceptional job of conveying this in terrifying and compelling ways. The direction by K Pontuti wrestles it all into a slow burn narrative that never stops feeling tense and uneasy. It’s a really terrific piece of work.

The Yellow Wallpaper arrives for digital on demand rental on March 29th, 2022.