The main drawcard of a film like The Woman In The Yard is its meandering execution based on its iconic, titular conceit. It’s intriguing, tense, subtle, tantalizing, and patiently proceeds at the controlled pace of a slow simmer. It asks more questions than it answers as the shrouded woman responds to basic questions with enigmatic riddles like the Sphinx. It’s driven more by its breezy attitude than its desire to hit plot points – which it eventually does – in its own time as its themes slowly congeal.
The latest offering from Blumhouse powerhouse is a contained psychological thriller mainly set in the isolated, off the grid house of widow Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler), her testy fourteen-year-old son Taylor (Peyton Jackson) and her younger six-year-old daughter Annie (Estella Kahiha). All are on edge. They’ve recently lost their patriarch David (Russell Hornsby) in a car accident which Ramona survived with a broken leg.
The power is out and the food in the fridge may go bad. The familiar setup is deliberate and richly metaphorical. It will eventually get dark and their food may spoil. All are subtle signs of imminent danger.
The Woman In The Yard opens as a relatable family drama struggling to heal the wound of their loss. The film is chilling and menacing; even more so with its muted action to highlight the patriarch’s absence.
Written by Sam Stefanak (F Is For Family), The Woman In The Yard smoulders as a visual mood piece, preferring tension and texture over the sparsely-placed scares. He initially wrote the story with two white male leads as The Man In The Yard. After Danielle Deadwyler expressed interest in the project, she reconfigured the characters.
Ramona harbors a bottled-up pain which is teased and poked by a mysterious, black-veiled woman (Okwui Okpokwasili) who seems to know everything about her. She unleashes her supernatural power with her eerie premonition, “Today’s the day.” The veil is a symbol of both concealment and revelation. Life and death. Freedom and entrapment.
Taylor (Peyton Jackson), Annie (Estella Kahiha) & Ramona (Danielle Deadwyler) Photo by Daniel Delgado Jr. / Universal Pictures
The Woman’s hold over them strengthens as she creeps closer to the house and won’t leave them alone despite repeated calls from Ramona. What does she want? How did she get there? When will she leave? When will this end?
Who Is The Woman?
The Woman is ostensibly a stark monster constructed from Ramona’s imagination. She could be a healer or agent of death. She sports bloodied hands and occasionally a mutilated face.
The nameless woman seems to know more about Ramona than Ramona herself. Ramona assumes she’s lost or demented. The Woman claims to have been invited, but Ramona has no recollection of this. She may have wandered from the retirement home “near the school.” Ironically, it’s Ramona that seems to be most lost and confused.
The Woman could be an oracle, a personification from Ramona’s subconscious, or an omnipotent force that rebalances the order of things. She sits in an ornate, throne-like chair as she advises Ramona of her next steps in life.
The Woman is a literal and metaphorical entree into the human psyche. She represents the shadow which judges us, the darkness, the hidden emotions; in this case its grief. Ramona can’t cast her crippling grief aside and must confront her inner demons amid the outer chaos. The house and the yard are emblems of the close proximity between one’s internal and external lives. One influences the other.
The Woman In The Yard dives deeper into the mental health struggles of Ramona who’s unsure of her ability to continue to raise her children as she grapples with the possibility of her being partially responsible for her husband’s death, at least on a subconscious level. She was driving before the fatal car accident.
She wasn’t happy moving to the peaceful countryside because her life was usurped by taking care of the family at the expense of herself. But she never wanted to husband to die. Or did she?
The film bathes in an array of potent emotions adjacent to grief – the ability to make peace with the tragedy and move on, depression, suicidal tendencies, and unshakable guilt.
The death of the patriarch impacts the entire family. It shifts the dynamics regarding who takes care of who. Taylor suggests he takes car of Annie, Annie takes care of her soft toy; it’s unclear who takes care of Ramona as she emotionally unravels. Taylor reacts as the defiant teenager while Annie clutches her stuffed animal in comfort and confusion.
Ramona’s wrestles with her thoughts through flashbacks and cut aways. There are intimate scenes with David where Ramona discusses her deep unhappiness with the familial living arrangement, despite her originally agreeing to it. In being too agreeable, she lost herself. Perhaps she should have spoken up before the move?
Ramona not only reflects on the past, be she also imagines an alternative parallel timeline which may have paved the way for a happier future where the house is fully refurbished and there are smiles all round.
Taylor and Annie leave and Ramona resigns herself to her fate.
