Martyrdom is made thrillingly infectious in Rose Glass’s Tenet-topping psychological horror about a care nurse and her formidable patient
What a strange, contained, audacious film this is. Rose Glass’s silken debut hit headlines with a Tenet-beating box office performance in October, but it is in many ways the antithesis of a theatrical must-see. Draw the curtains, clutch a bottle of brandy and pray your soul makes it through to the credits.
Morfydd Clark plays Maud, a palliative care nurse and recent convert to high Catholicism. Her unlucky next patient is former dancer Amanda (Jennifer Ehle), dying of cancer in a grand house on the Scarborough cliffs. “A bit of a cunt,” is the departing nurse’s description in her handover briefing. And Glass’s psycho-thriller gains rich emotional tension from the fact its victim is no pushover.