Film Review: The Moth Diaries (2012) (R)

Is my classmate a vampire?

Along the same lines as Darren Aronofsky Black Swan, The Moth Diaries is a dark riddle, a gothic psychological thriller that continually challenges the public’s perception of reality without reaching any definitive conclusions. Here’s a movie that we can’t trust most of what we see or hear; we’re playing games with ourselves, and any deductions we make come entirely from what we personally bring to the experience. I know this is the case because many scenes are intentionally structured to be interpreted in two ways. That writer / director Mary Harron managed it without seeming mechanical or artificial is a great achievement. Obviously, we are being manipulated and yet it is done with such passion and intelligence that we realize that we do not care much.

Adapted from the novel by Rachel Klein, it tells the story of Rebecca (Sarah Bolger), a sixteen-year-old who begins a new semester at a very posh boarding school for girls, which was a hotel more than 100 years ago. The entries in her personal diary, along with very short flashback sequences, reveal a profound personal tragedy, namely the suicide of her father, a published poet. When he first attended school two years earlier, it was right after his death, and his personal life was still a mess. He found comfort in Lucie (Sarah Gadon), who has since become his best friend. This semester, Rebecca feels lighter, freer, and overall much happier than she ever felt before. But things soon change with the arrival of a new student. Here comes Ernessa (Lily Cole), a quiet young beauty with dark hair and pale skin.

Ernessa doesn’t seem unpleasant, not at first, although there are certain odd characteristics that Rebecca notices. Why, for example, does he join all the girls in the cafeteria but never eat? She cannot be anorexic; physically, she looks like a normal teenager. One night, Rebecca wakes up, looks out the open window, and sees Ernessa walking barefoot on the sidewalk. Lucie doesn’t seem to notice any of this. In fact, Ernessa quite captivates her, and helps Lucie study her German and Greek homework. Lucie tells Rebecca that she’s not giving Ernessa a chance, and that even though she has unsolved problems, Ernessa is a good person once you meet her. Rebecca doesn’t see it the same way. From her perspective, Ernessa is stealing from Lucie.

The new English teacher, Mr. Davies (Scott Speedman), is a frank admirer of Rebecca’s father. He even owns a first edition of his book of poems. This, combined with his indisputably beautiful features, leads us to unshakable suspicions, namely that he will cross a line with his students or, more specifically, with Rebecca. There is a scene that clearly shows something physical, and yet the nature of Rebecca’s character soon leads us to wonder if that scene actually took place. But before that happens, he introduces his students to the world of gothic vampire fiction, which he says all contain sex, blood, and death. From this, Rebecca begins to suspect that Ernessa is herself a vampire. He looks at a group photo from 1907 and sees a figure that, although somewhat blurred, looks a lot like Ernessa. She begins to smell something rotten emanating from Ernessa’s room, though no one else seems to notice. When Rebecca sees Ernessa walking precariously on the windowsill outside her window, she seems to re-enter by literally passing through the glass without breaking.

Rebecca’s world is repeatedly interrupted by a chain of deaths and gradual isolation from her friends. Sinister events are increasing in frequency. What are we going to make of the scene where Rebecca suddenly has a nosebleed when Ernessa walks into the room … and Ernessa tastes some of Rebecca’s blood on her finger? Why does Ernessa’s room seem to be filled with thousands of moths, especially since a moth is central to a happy memory Rebecca has of her father? Lucie’s health progressively worsens and her energy is depleted by the day. Could it be that Rebecca is Ernessa’s real target? And what about the sudden appearance of a 1907 diary, in which a young woman vividly remembers a suicide?

The only question that is never really answered is whether or not Ernessa is a real vampire. It is quite possible that Rebecca’s obsession with her, along with visions of incidents that have no rational basis, is due to the jealousy and trauma of her recent loss. In a calmly tense scene, Rebecca plays with a razor blade – which, incidentally, came into her possession through unknown means – and wonders aloud if she has the same “disease” her father carried. It’s weird, how a film so unreliable in narrative can be at the same time so clever and so absorbing. The Moth Diaries it is a game exercise; We may not know what the rules are, or even if there are any rules, but we follow them independently out of morbid curiosity.