Sebastien Blanc
Digital platforms from 3 July
A YEAR after the car he was driving span off the road and into a tree, William is shown into an almost empty room on the ground floor of a house. There is a camp bed and a TV. It isn鈥檛 his old bedroom 鈥� it might not even be his home it is so anonymous 鈥� but it will have to do.
William is still learning to walk and talk again, and the stairs are too much. This is a shame because he wants to see his mother, who never comes downstairs to visit him and is, it seems, constantly 鈥渦nder the weather鈥�. William scribbles a message to Richard, the man who brought him here: 鈥淚s she angry?鈥� Richard protests just that little bit too much.
Advertisement
Already we feel we shouldn鈥檛 be watching, not because there is anything bad going on, but because the script, by first-time feature director Sebastien Blanc, absolutely refuses to acknowledge our presence.
The camerawork is no guide, either. Shot in the pseudo-factual style of a British soap opera, Cerebrum views everything with the same dispassion. No jump scares. No plangent chords. We will have to figure this out for ourselves.
And so we do. Richard is more than William鈥檚 carer. The house indeed is (or was) William鈥檚 family home. Richard is digging deep holes in the garden. And just where is William鈥檚 mother? 鈥淵ou have no idea what I am doing to fix what you have done,鈥� says Richard in a rare moment of lost temper, and astute viewers will have no difficulty predicting what happens next.
It is a gutsy move, placing suspense over surprise. We know our Frankenstein. We know what happens to the mad professor in the attic. We watch, with growing excitement and gathering horror, as the denouement approaches, and Ramona Von Pusch, playing Amelia, William鈥檚 mother, gets the briefest moment in the limelight.
Tobi King Bakare鈥檚 turn as William, damaged in both body and mind, is visceral to a fault. Best of all, he never plays for sympathy: William hates himself so much we rather hate him too, at least at first.
Steve Oram, who plays Richard, is a frequent presence on British television, but nothing prepares us for this performance. It is impossible to keep in mind that he is acting. Richard is a terrifying creation: a quiet, unimaginative man building his very own road to hell.
When the floodgates finally crack, and Richard sits William down for a spot of family therapy, things take a very dark emotional turn. 鈥淚 want you to visualise what is troubling you,鈥� says Richard, 鈥渁nd then I want you to laugh openly at it.鈥� At which point half of me wanted to cheer, the other half to run screaming from the room.
Cerebrum isn鈥檛 an important movie. It is a no-budget labour of love that gives writer-director Blanc something to talk about in pitch meetings. Structured around suspense, the film can鈥檛 help but leave us disappointed in the final reel, though I can鈥檛 help but feel any extra twists would have felt tacked-on.
The script, which gives a Black twentysomething white adoptive parents and then hands everyone plenty of conversational opportunity to drop themselves in it, suggests Jordan Peele鈥榮 superbly queasy 2017 debut Get Out 鈥� but the threads here aren鈥檛 gathered nearly so tightly or so cleverly.
Instead, watch Cerebrum for its performances, chillingly spare script and the trust it puts in its audience.
Simon also recommends鈥�
A Book of Dreams
Peter Reich (John Blake)
This 1973 memoir by Peter Reich beautifully captures a father-son bond forged at the edges of reality. His psychoanalyst father was Wilhelm Reich, later notorious for his discovery of (fictional) 鈥渙rgone energy鈥�.
John Wyndham (Penguin)
Surely 12-year-old Matthew is too old to have an imaginary friend? John Wyndham gives late-1960s dinner-table anxieties a sly extraterrestrial spin.
Simon Ings is a novelist and science writer. Follow him on Instagram at @simon_ings
