Festa Mobile screening - review - THE HUSBAND by Bruce McDonald

Bruce McDonald's The Husband paints an intriguing delicate domestic picture.

Henry (Maxwell McCabe-Lokos) is a troubled soul indeed. His wife cheated on him with a preteen kid named Colin (Dylan Authors) and is currently serving time in jail. She is about to get out, and adding to his troubles is the fact that he meets Colin and starts stalking him in an obsessive and unhealthy manner. McDonald’s film, co-written by lead actor Maxwell McCabe-Lokos, paints a very awkward and uncomfortable picture. 

Despite the delicate nature of the plot, it employs a delicate approach that unfortunately makes the film rather lukewarm. In fact, The Husband is a film with a lot of good and a lot of bad. While on the one side it’s very admirable that the director handles the whole project with a twist of dark humour, it’s also true that the deadpan nature of the film frustratingly stalls the pace of the narrative. In other words, while it’s commendable that McDonald is able to contain the film’s overall madness without crossing the ever so thin line of tastelessness, it also ends up being very middling. 

Thankfully, McCabe-Lokos, who also write the film, wrote for himself a part he fits perfectly in a physical way as well. His skinny physique and absentminded facial expressions reveal the internal pressure of a man that is nothing short of a ticking time bomb. In fact, one of the things that make this film pleasurable is that all the while, we wait for it to erupt. 

Sadly it builds up momentum so much that it doesn’t live up to its expectations. All the while, we wait for that one thing to happen, and when it does it’s rather underwhelming. Thumbs up for the static cinematography, delightful in its simplicity. But in spite of the interest that the plot inevitably stirs up, The Husband ends up being relatively disappointing like bait with no bite.