Alpha is a haunting yet flawed body horror allegory

Photo courtesy of NEON

With her previous movies Raw and Titane, Julia Ducournau has established herself as a powerful voice and one of the best genre directors in the game today. Her work is textured and layered, with body horror acting as the main throughline in her films thus far. Her third feature, Alpha, is a not-so-subtle allegory about the AIDS pandemic and the way that people reacted to it. The film also tackles drug addiction and family trauma, and yes, it's a lot to cram into a single feature. Not all of it works, but there are some incredibly arresting visuals in this movie on par with anything in Ducournau's last two films.

The movie stars Mélissa Boros as Alpha. In the opening, Alpha passes out at a party and is tattooed. We see the needle pierce her skin before she's permanently inked with a letter A on her upper arm. The close-up of the needle, the trickle of blood, and the black ink feels like it goes on for a quite a while, as the music thumps around the sleeping and unaware teen. It's unsettling and effective. This is what Ducournau excels at. Following the party, Alpha is marginalized at school, especially once her arm bleeds. Her classmates fear that she's sick and will infect them. They shun and taunt her, pushing her to the margins, much like AIDs patients in the 1980s. There's even one sequence where the girls fight with her in the pool and nearly drown her. The fact Alpha was even allowed to swim with her bleeding arm defies logic.

Meanwhile, Alpha's mom, who is unnamed but played by Golshifteh Farahani, dreads that her daughter has the disease, contracted by the needle that inked up her flesh. Mom is a doctor and fears for her kid's fate. She sees patients daily, and in this case, the contagion turns them into marble-like statues. They cough up dust shortly before death. These are incredibly eerie, yet mesmerizing images on par with anything David Cronenberg, Clive Barker, or other body horror maestros crafted over the years.

Besides the pandemic, there's another major thread within the film. Alpha's heroin-addicted uncle, Amin (Tahar Rahim), stays with family and sleeps in Alpha's room. It defies explanation why mom would allow this, however, considering everything else occurring in Alpha's life. Couldn't he sleep on the living room couch? No wonder the poor kid has reoccurring nightmares of her bedroom collapsing upon her. The stress becomes suffocating.

Alpha contains plenty of impressive sequences, especially the use of body horror to address the AIDS crisis, but the film has some major flaws, including its editing. You wouldn't even know the film takes place in the early 90s, other than maybe a Nas poster in Alpha's bedroom. Perhaps that's not important, per say, but the film introduces flashbacks set in the early 1980s without smooth transitions. At times, it's jarring and confusing. Additionally, there are a lot of themes and ideas at play here, often too many. There's the allegory about the AIDS pandemic, family trauma, and drug addiction. The script needed more polishing to fine-tune or even scale back some of these ideas.

It's likely that the ending will frustrate some viewers, too. There's a moment when Alpha's English teacher recites Poe's famous poem "A Dream Within a Dream." Without spoiling anything, let's just say it suits the conclusion, but it's a rather befuddling end point that also feels rushed. Further, compared to Ducournau's previous work, this movie feels much colder. There are so many gray and drab tones in this, especially compared to Raw and Titane. Those movies certainly dealt with weighty topics, including cannibalism, sexual assault, and transhumanism, but they had a richer, more vibrant color palette. Additionally, it's tough to like any of these characters. While Farahani gives an earnest and strong performance, her character is overprotective and makes some odd choices. She also has a savior complex that grows tiresome. All of that said, Boros is fantastic, especially the way she conveys her character's resilience. The movie deserves a watch just for her performance.

 Ducournau has already proven that whatever she releases warrants attention. Alpha is a devastating, haunting, yet flawed allegory. It could have used a dash of humor here and there, as well as a tighter script. That said, it contains a few sequences that are some of the strongest and most unsettling horror scenes I've watched this year. Despite some issues I had with the film, including clunky editing, I'll be thinking about it for a while. Despite her latest film's flaws, Ducournau continues to prove she's willing to take huge swings and use genre filmmaking to address deeper issues.

Alpha is now available on VOD.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Cc2A-YLARs