TinsHeadline Touches You

Huievest Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

GarnettTeenage The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

roskvo This has to be the worst movie poster\DVD cover I have ever seen. This IS NOT a horror film in the commercial sense, so please don't expect horror 'pay-offs'. There are none. Personally, I think the film is better for it - it's bleaker and more nihilistic than that. It gives you the same kind of feeling as Michael Haneke's 'Hidden', or Lars Von Trier's 'Anti-christ' or 'Melancholia'. It was made before those films though. The opening ballet sequence is beautiful and pays homage to other ballet films like 'Susprisia' by Dario Argento or Thomas Edison's Anna Belle Serpentine. In fact this film may be an influence on Darren Aronofsky's 'Black Swan' - there are a few striking similarities in plot - but because his audience was prepared for the fact that his is a film about insanity, his film get's rave reviews - where as this has been misdirected at a horror audience. If this film was made in French with different actors, set and sound, it could have been a big hit in art-house cinemas, but then that is the pretentiousness of these divisions that are arbitrarily placed on films.About a third of the way through the film I understood that the film was not going in a 'supernatural' direction, and from that point on there were not too many big surprises for me - but then the inevitability of what this mother, played by liz shue, was going to do (I will not spoil it) made watching the last half hour almost unbearable - in a good way. This is a true descent into madness but played out in a way that makes it seem like something that could happen to your neighbour without anyone noticing.The director did well to keep things simple - the films does not quite have all the pieces it needs to be as profound as it wants to be because other people working on the film have a different intent from the director - he should have adopted an approach much more like the recent film 'Martha Marcy May Marlene', in the sound design and choice of shots. Some of First Born's style is reminiscent of slasher films like Scream and thriller's like Panic Room starring Jodie Foster, but other than these stylistic inserts, the film is nothing like those films. The better parts of the film, such as the hospital scenes or the recurring motifs like a spiral staircase and a doll, seem more in the classic 70's thriller style of Polanski or Hitchcock and occasionally Shue's performance even reminds the viewer of Mia Farrow - her haircut is a fairly clear reference to Rosemary's Baby.Most people who watch Rosemary's Baby, understand that is not really about the Anti-Christ or real devil worshippers - it is basically one big surreal metaphor for the anxiety of a first time mother and the way that people who think they are helping or making reasonable demands of the mother, are actually making things worse and demonstrating a complete lack of understanding. First Born uses realism and a portrayal of insanity as its method for making similar points about motherhood and society's expectations and conflicting advise or help - it does so partly from the mother's point of view and her imagination, or misinterpretation of strange coincidences, creates any 'horror' that we see.It references the modern rise in C-sections, use of prescription drugs, lack of personalised care, lack of a wider family circle, lack of religion or genuine traditions, lack of a proper role for the father, lack of father's paternity leave, placing financial security and property ahead of emotional security in a home, jaded scepticism about the worth of having children, the premature aging of parents due to stress, the self-inflicted destruction of sex life and self-worth, the harming of children by trying to be overprotective, the overuse of technology and so on. Liz Shue at one point has a very interesting little conversation with the East European nanny (perhaps another horror cliché), played as well as possible by Kathleen Chalfant, about how mothers in less well developed countries take to motherhood more naturally because their immediate concerns are more basic and emotional pressures and psychological issues become less relevant. In other words, we create a sort of nightmare for ourselves but then look outwith ourselves for the solution.The opening music by John Frizzel and the end piano piece by Mendelssohn were good choices of music and the use of Ballet was equally effective with its different costumes and poses to represent the different ways in which the mother sees herself and her physical pain/self-hatred - in fact I would have added more of it and less of the running around in corridors with a horror soundtrack. People talk about a disappointing ending but if you don't know with 5 minutes to go exactly what's gonna happen at the end, then you need help - it's just a matter of whether someone will be able to stop her or not. Steven Mackintosh is solid but he is not really given many decent lines. It's Shue's film and she puts in one of her better performances, although again with occasional misdirection into slasher histrionics - her scenes with the supermarket cashier are really good though and provide a key to understanding the character.

Valtresca I guess I found this movie premise interesting because I am a man and have know idea what women go through emotionally and physically during the whole birthing process so post partum depression or psychosis is a mystery to me.I gave it only a 9 because there were some thing that were not explained thoroughly enough for my liking. One was the Diary she found and the girl in the grocery store that talked about her friend that used to live there. I know, I know they showed her open it up at the end and it was blank so it was actually her diary but I just felt it happened a little too quickly for the viewer to process.Other than that I loved the movie. I've watched it a couple of times again hoping I could find answers as to why and how psychosis occurs or develops to the point of matricide. That question is never fully answered. It could have something to do with the guilt she felt for killing her dog with rat poison. I mean she just really seemed like more of an absent minded person other than crazy/mad at times. I know that her being a lone a lot of the time also contributed to her condition and her husband was really never there for her and probably resented her for killing the family dog however accidentally.

Comeuppance Reviews "First Born" is a clichéd but watchable thriller.Laura (Shue) is a dancer who gets pregnant and moves into a country home with her husband (Steven Mackintosh). After the pregnancy, she starts getting post-partum depression. She uses (Tom Cruise's) advice to not go on drugs. She starts seeing and believing things that aren't real.Elisabeth Shue puts in a good performance, but the script and plotting are lacking. It's basically the same scene for 90 minutes. Laura goes crazy and no believes her, Ad Nauseum. The ending, while interesting, can't bring the movie up to snuff in time.Overall, "First Born" is a decent movie, but the script, idea and execution could've been way better.For more insanity, please visit: comeuppancereviews.com

claire mckenzie don't believe everything you read, everyone has an opinion, and everyone does not have to agree with that opinion. the movie was slow moving in a positive way, this helped in creating the characters and atmosphere. and even though we could predict the ending, we did not want this to be so;as the ending developed that feeling of "Oh my god" factor hit home with a thud. the movie left me feeling numb and silent, hoping i had missed a valuable point, though no, Spoiler - she really did it, her madness brought on by a bad experience during labour, loneliness and paranoia towards being what society counts towards being a good mother, and later infection from her c section brings on hallucinations and madness. as she takes the doll out into the garden, dragging it by the arm and tossing it onto the grass before digging a hole to bury the cold, lifeless plastic that has been haunting her, the small smile forcing its way onto the mothers face has never left me with such a feeling of dread, keep your paranormal, slash, terror/horror movies, this psychological thriller did it for me, i feel despair and sadness just as the mother felt and what the director wanted from his audience.