Joshua

The U.K. Telegraph recently reported a story called: Babies Not As Innocent As They Pretend.

"Whether lying about raiding the biscuit tin or denying they broke a toy, all children try to mislead their parents at some time. Yet it now appears that babies learn to deceive from a far younger age than anyone previously suspected," wrote reporter Richard Gray. "Behavioural experts have found that infants begin to lie from as young as six months. Simple fibs help to train them for more complex deceptions in later life."

Creepy kids in movies almost never fail to push our buttons, whether they're of the more sly variety (Rhoda from The Bad Seed) or overtly evil (Damien from The Omen). So where does Joshua fall? This little boy, played with a naturalistic knowingness by Jacob Kogan, is in the gray area. The things he does may or may not be due to supernatural influences… but probably not, which makes him all the more scary.

Joshua is a 9 year old whose parents, Brad (Sam Rockwell) and Abby (Vera Farmiga) have just given birth to a healthy baby girl. This is much to the delight of everyone in the family, including — it seems — Joshua. But soon things start to crumble, starting with the sudden onset of incessant crying and wailing from the baby, and ending in someone's death.

Joshua is an irritating movie — the nails-on-chalkboard sound design and palsy-inspired cinematography is enough to make Helen Keller run screaming from the room. But it's all there for a reason. You aren't meant to know it, but you're supposed to be bothered. As you try to connect the dots you realize that deviously, insidiously, director/co-writer George Ratliff has manipulated you into feeling the ominous worry that Brad and Abby might be experiencing. It's effective.

The casting could not have been better, which lends a true credibility to these characters. With actors who aren't big names but who are well-known for their attuned performances in a variety of roles (with the exception of Kogan, who's making his big screen debut here), the movie is allowed to find its way into your psyche without you being forced to think, "Oh, that's so-and-so, who I saw on a tabloid this morning." Celia Weston, Michael McKean, and Dallas Roberts offer solid support to the main cast.

It spite of its dark burrowing, Joshua also has light, believable, everyday humor and some good jump-scares sustained by genuine suspense.

If you can appreciate complex, slow-burn dramas and forego the buckets of blood, then you're likely to agree with me when I say that Joshua is among the best of films of its genre to come along in quite some time.

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