‘Went Up the Hill’ Review: Vicky Krieps and Dacre Montgomery Are Dazzling in a Poetic Ghost Story

Vicky Krieps and Dacre Montgomery are a captivating and haunted couple in Went Up the Hill. Actually haunted, as in possessed by a ghost. But Samuel Van Grinsven’s elliptical, poetic, technically stunning film is a ghost story that rarely does more than nod at horror tropes. The film pointedly uses that ghost as a means of exploring grief, abandonment and the emotional chaos the dead woman caused even while she was still alive. Van Grinsven was highly praised as a promising director for his first film, Sequin in a Blue Room (2019), made when he was still a film student. Went Up the Hill demonstrates that praise wasn’t misplaced.

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The setting is an atmospheric, isolated part of New Zealand. Jack (Montgomery) shows up at a wake for Elizabeth, who committed suicide. The wake takes place at her large, austere house, where light flows through the windows but the walls are cement and the emotional chill is inescapable. He is certain that the dead woman’s widow, Jill (Krieps), has called and invited him to come. Yes, their names are Jack and Jill, as in the pair who went up the hill in the nursery rhyme that gives the film its title. That may sound playful, but there is nothing playful about the film’s tone. The Mother Goose title is a sign that while things might look normal, the fantastic informs this story.

Jill has not phoned Jack, and wasn’t aware he existed, even though he is Elizabeth’s son, but she invites him to stay. At night, as in a kind of dream, they discover that Elizabeth can possess each of them in turn, speaking through them. She called Jack to come. In other hands that would be spooky, but Van Grinsven goes in a different direction. Jack is unnerved while Jill is torn between shock and joy at being able to hear from Elizabeth again, but they matter-of-factly accept that she can channel her presence. And there is nothing creepy about Elizabeth’s voice: Krieps and Montgomery sound like themselves, as the ghost takes over their words but not their physical voices.

Both actors are wonderfully understated. Krieps, of course, has given powerful, measured performances before, notably in The Phantom Thread. Here she looks slightly fiercer when Elizabeth speaks through her. Montgomery, best known as Billy on Stranger Things, looks sterner when Elizabeth speaks through him. With such small touches, they establish what is happening without overdramatizing.

Van Grinsven’s aesthetic choices mirror the mood of the story, and the eeriness comes as much from his technique as it does from any plot turn. At the start, the sound effects by Robert Mackenzie might be wind but also might double as a moan or howl. Especially at the beginning, the cinematographer, Tyson Perkins, plays with focus. The foreground and background shift at times to create a sense of disorientation. And Sherree Philips’ production design is understated and effective.

Jack and Jill rarely interact with other people, as the film stays focused on the pair in that lonely house. But Sarah Peirse makes a strong impact in a small role as Elizabeth’s sister, whose manner suggests severe judgment, and whose conversations with Jack reveal that anyone close to Elizabeth ended up in pain. When both Jack and Jill appear with bruises on their bodies, we understand that Elizabeth had been physically abusive as well as manipulative.

As Elizabeth’s widow and son ask her questions, the answers are more unsettling than her presence. Jack was taken away by social services and put into foster care as a child. He wants to know why. Jill says to Elizabeth, accusingly, “You left me.” But the ghost isn’t there to give comforting answers. Inevitably, it seems, Jack and Jill have sex as Elizabeth channels herself through Jack, which is head-spinning and pretty much as overwrought a situation as it sounds. It’s not exactly incestuous, although Jill has sex with her dead wife’s son and Jack with his stepmother. Jack hardly knows what’s happening during that time and bolts out into the cold night when he comes out of his trance. But in a film this original, Van Grinsven can get away with some outlandish choices.

Near the end, the film does turn toward genre horror, with a single jump scare and a suspenseful conclusion. Went Up a Hill is, after all, a ghost story, but one shaped in a fresh and artful way by a director who, in his second film, already has the control of a master.