Hatching Review

Hatching is a Finnish horror film that premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. This film acts as a body horror, a psychological piece, and a critique of modern society.

Tinja (Siiri Solalinna) is a 12-year-old gymnast who seems to have a perfect family life. Her Mother (Sophia Heikkilä) is a vlogger who projects this image to the world. However, Tinja’s life isn’t as good as it seems. When Tinja discovers an egg in the forest she takes it home and raises the mysterious creature that hatches from it.

Hatching was Hanna Bergholm debut feature film as a director and she made an impression with a wonderfully strange flick. What Bergholm created was a dark coming-of-age story.

Tinja was the victim of an emotionally abusive and manipulative mother. She has forced her daughter to do gymnastics despite Tinja’s dislike for the sport. The mother’s only concern was the family image, so she wanted Tinja to compete in the competition because it looked good for her. She was a narcissist. The Mother forced Tinja to train until she had blisters on her hands and all their interactions were about the competition or The Mother’s self-interest. A notable scene early in the film was when Tinja’s younger brother (Oiva Ollila) hugs his mother, she pushes him away. Hatching might be a film featuring a monster that killed and maimed, The Mother was the actual villain of the piece.

Tinja was looking for someone to love her and the creature she called Alli provided that. Alli gave Tinja the affection she needed. They hugged and comforted each other. But there was a dark side since there was a psychic connection between the pair. Alli knew of Tinja’s dark desires and attempts to enact them. It was an interesting theme that Tinja had a conscience and tried to stop Alli. Tinja had to fight her subconscious which had come alive.

Hatching does touch on a lot of issues a girl going through puberty. Tinja wanted to impress her mum and because of her mum’s tight control, Tinja was bullied and mocked by peers for being a weirdo. Even if someone was kind to Tinja, like Reetta (Ida Määttänen), Tinja did get jealous of her. The themes go deeper since Tinja had to harm herself because she regurgitated food for Alli, an obvious metaphor for bulimia, and Tinja had to hurt herself to punish Alli.

As well as Tinja’s personal issues, Hatching was a satire about modern life and superficiality. The family lived in a pristine house in a wealthy suburb and The Mother claimed they were just a ‘normal Finnish family.’ But this was a lie because she used her family for her own means. She was like many family YouTubers who exploited their families for fame and fortune. To show how much image matters to The Mother she told her daughter she was going to edit a video to prevent her from seeing a gymnast’s mistakes. The film set up the fragility of this superficiality early by showing the family taking a photo and then a bird coming into the living room and smashing it up. The Mother’s clean image was shattered when she broke the bird’s neck in front of her family.

Due to Hatching’s themes about puberty, image, life online, and the dark side of suburbia it could get an American remake. I could picture it being set in a wealthy state like Washington, Massachusetts, or Maryland.

Bergholm liked to use foreshadowing during the first act. Tinja’s dark side was shown when she killed a suffering bird and her neighbour’s dog tried to bite the girl which was considered out of character for the animal. There was a children’s song sung with lyrics that mirrored Alli’s circumstances.

When it came to horror, Hatching’s editor Linda Jildmalm did a great job at showing parallel events. This happened when Alli was preparing to attack and Tinja felt her doppelganger’s thoughts. The film used a mix of puppetry and CGI to bring Alli to life. It was great to see classic effects being used with modern technology to amplify the creature’s emotions and expressions. There was a grotesqueness to Alli. In her first stage she was covered in blood and mucus, and she left mucus around the house. Later in the film Alli shed body parts like she was an insect.

Hatching was a film that fans of art-horror would love because it was filled with metaphors and messages. It was effective with shocking imagery and a thematic approach, but it might struggle to win over more general audiences.