Movie Review ~ Hoard

As an only child, I was always outnumbered when it came to my parents.  When the voting is between a group of three, guess who usually banded together for the win?  Occasionally, one of them would cross party lines, and I’d claim a short-lived victory.  The usual turncoat was my dad (a city mouse from birth), but every so often, my staunch mom (raised as a tiny farming town country mouse) would give in.  It’s something we can look back and laugh at now, but at the time, I dramatically thought the relationship was, to put it mildly, fraught.

Then I started watching movies like Mommie Dearest, Carrie, and Psycho and realized that, by comparison, my mother was a saint and changed my tune right quickly.   While plenty of films have explored the hard-scrabble life between fathers and their children, cinema has long loved to dig into the cracks exposed by the breakdown of the role most associated with the traditional caregiving one.  The outdated thinking was that mothers are chiefly responsible for caring for their young, being available to any need within the family, and putting aside their lives for the good of all.

Writer/director Luna Carmoon’s Hoard is a compelling addition to the tradition of upending the expected. It delivers a raw, unflinching portrayal of generational trauma and parental neglect. In her feature film debut, now playing in select UK cinemas and undated yet for US audiences, Carmoon dives deep into family dysfunction, crafting an often-riveting but consistently difficult-to-watch narrative that will leave you pondering the complexities of family dynamics.

Set in 1990s Britain, Hoard follows Maria (Saura Lightfoot Leon), a teenager in foster care after the tragic death of her mother, Cynthia (Hayley Squires, Beau is Afraid), a compulsive hoarder.   As the film details in painfully direct moments, Maria has been left deeply scarred emotionally by both her mother’s death and the hoarding that she has adopted as a coping mechanism.  As she adjusts to life in her foster home, old habits resurface when a former resident, Michael (Joseph Quinn, A Quiet Place: Day One), returns.   Rekindling a relationship that begins as friends but turns into something darker forces her to confront long-buried memories and the unresolved trauma that has kept her from moving forward with her life.

Lightfoot Leon delivers a devastating turn as Maria, vulnerably displaying toughness as a young woman haunted by her past.  Quinn’s Michael is another standout, and his quiet intensity mirrors Maria’s fractured childhood. I look forward to seeing more of him later this year in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator II.  However, it’s Squires who leaves a profoundly lasting impact. Despite limited screen time, Squires infuses Cynthia with manic desperation, portraying her as a tragic figure whose hoarding stems from deeper emotional wounds.  I wish we had additional time with her and that more of her side of the story was explored; at times, I felt drawn to wallow in the squalor of her past more than the present Carmoon was showing us.

For her first feature, Carmoon’s direction is confident. She deliberately blends the past and present to show the chaos of Maria’s shifting emotional state. The production design is particularly effective, carefully recreating the late ’80s and early ’90s. The contrast between Cynthia’s overstuffed, hoarded home and Maria’s organized foster environment enhances the film’s exploration of trauma and how it’s not always your surroundings that can lead you astray.

While her way with a visual narrative is striking, Carmoon’s heavy reliance on grotesque imagery, including recurring scenes involving all kinds of bodily fluids, can be majorly overwhelming. For some, including myself, the relentless focus on the grim aspects of the story may wind up overshadowing the film’s ultimate emotional depth and sense of personal discovery.

A bold addition to the coming-of-age genre, Carmoon’s Hoard refuses to offer easy answers or neat resolutions. This deliberate choice challenges the audience to grapple with the complexities of the characters’ lives and the unresolved trauma that shapes them.