The Holding (2011)

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Lonely farmer Nancy raises her daughters Hannah and Amy with financial difficulties on her farm, since her husband has disappeared a long time ago.Her neighbour Karsten and his son intend to buy her farm and are pressing the family in an abusive way.Out of the blue, wanderer Aden appears on the farm and helps Nancy with the delivery of an offspring.Aden explains that he was a friend of her husband on an offshore rig and he offers to work for food and lodging.Nancy accepts the offer and soon she has a love affair with Aden.....Another one of those silly British movies that is all gritty and dirty looking, but trying to be the new 'thriller' or something. This film fails on every level.For a start the film has no plausibility about it, as no one would ever let a stranger stay in their house if they just appeared out of th blue, and the transformation from normal bloke to psychopath is just laughable.When you look at it from another angle, the film ha no real meaning to exist. It just happens, in a very boring and predictable way.Boring stuff, with a few minor distractions.

What starts as a pretty strong thriller descends into an odd (and sadly) bad mix of clichés. Notice who is still standing at the end and who isn't. See a pattern there? I wouldn't have, because I didn't really bother to think about the movie, but another viewer pointed that out to the director. She said it was a coincidence, but I seriously doubt that it was.Don't get me wrong, there have been movies going the opposite way than this (didn't like that either), but that's not what appalled me. The fact that you get a soap opera, dripping with melodrama in a bad way, that may have gore as a redeeming factor (for some) does make this a difficult watch. It's a shame, that the mood set at the beginning gets undermined by that.

This is a solid little indi film about a family who are terrorised by a nutter out in the countryside. That is pretty much it.The acting, camera work and set is very good considering the tight budget. There isn't much substance to the movie and the plot gets a bit frayed (it seems bodies pile up unnoticed in the countryside quite easily) but it is tense in places and although annoying you do engage with the central characters.The film is not terrifying there is no gratuitous gore or nudity -must admit we were a little disappointed on that point as Kierston Wareing oozes sex appeal.Don't expect too much from this and you won't get let down. I enjoyed it but I wouldn't recommend selling the farm to watch it.

In the countryside of England, the lonely farmer Nancy (Kierston Wareing) raises her daughters Hanna (Skye Lourie) and Amy (Maisie Lloyd) with financial difficulties in her farm with her only employee Cooper (David Bradley) since her husband has disappeared a long time ago. Her neighbor Karsten (Terry Stone) and his son intend to buy her farm and is pressing the family in an abusive way. Out of the blue, the wanderer Aden (Vincent Regan) appears in the farm and helps Nancy with the delivery of the offspring. Aden explains that he was a friend of her husband Dean in an offshore rig and he offers to work for food and lodging. Nancy accepts the offer and sooner she has a love affair with Aden. But either Nancy or Aden have dark secrets and Nancy finds that Aden is actually a psychopath and her family is in danger."The Holding" is a rip-off of "The Stepfather" that takes place in the countryside of England. The plot is predictable and uses the clichés of the genre, but the acting is good and raises tension with the dangerous situation. My vote is six.Title (Brazil): "Passado Obscuro" ("Obscure Past")