Seven Veils, 2025.
Written and Directed by Atom Egoyan.
Starring Amanda Seyfried, Rebecca Liddiard, Douglas Smith, Mark O’Brien, Vinessa Antoine, Ambur Braid, Michael Kupfer-Radecky, Tara Nicodemo, Maia Jae Bastidas, Lynne Griffin, Lanette Ware, Maya Misaljevic, Joey Klein, Aliya Kanani, Siobhan Richardson, Michael Schade, and Karita Mattila.
SYNOPSIS:
An earnest theater director has the task of remounting her former mentor’s most famous work, the opera Salome. Some disturbing memories from her past will allow her repressed trauma to color the present.
An unusual but fascinating filmmaking experiment, writer/director Atom Egoyan’s Seven Veils tells the psychologically unsettling story of an opera director drawing from an uncomfortable, traumatizing past to rework a production of Salome, a story about obsessive love, from her mentor, now making “small but meaningful changes” and allowing her repressed personal experiences to shape that vision.
However, the proceedings also have a mockumentary vibe, featuring subplots involving prop artists, craft interviews, and stage production theatrics (including footage from actual live performance), as Canada contracted Atom Egoyan to make his version of that same play (there are also two sets of credits, one for the film and one for the stage play.) Mixing in the previously mentioned fictional story brings out this layered melding of drama and reality; a cross between a tantalizing inside baseball look at staging opera surrounded by domestic drama and psychological wounds opened.
This also means that Seven Veils is bursting with topical ideas, many of which are cemented in the arts and problematic dynamics that arise (in some cases, sexual assault.) Directing an opera at this scale for the first time is Amanda Seyfried’s Jeanine, also a mother to a teenager and at odds with her partner; they have seemingly drifted away, with him now sleeping with her mom’s caretaker. Naturally, she is often too busy to properly deal with that fracturing dynamic (and only communicates with them remotely), but there is something more pressing, invasive, and troubling on her mind, anyway: her father was also a part of the industry, using his daughter as a muse in some highly questionable, immediately offputting methods. She also appears to have a romantic connection to her mentor.
The film is in no rush, allowing this to play out as a slow burn, gradually revealing more information that Jeanine then decides to implement into her interpretation of the play. Generally, this manifests as an all-consuming obsession that could either free her or become more damaging to her psyche. Either way, she gets to interact with a plethora of game stage actors, sometimes injecting themselves into roles in ways directly opposed to Jeanine’s vision. At the same time, viewers are treated to authentic stage rehearsals, shadows, rehearsals, and more.
At times, this somewhat robs the film of its sinister energy and causes an awkward tonal imbalance (this is especially true when the movie starts the focus on more documentary-like aspects of the production, even if they too inevitably become dramatized), but the feeling that one is observing something genuinely unique remains. It also helps that Amanda Seyfried, while slowly becoming unhinged on set, maintains a grasp on the character’s humanity, also putting to good use her wide-eyed expressions when the truth of her emotionally locked-up, tormented past spills out.
There is hesitance and labeling Seven Veils rewarding, as it is overstuffed and comes across as a project vessel somewhere at the intersection between cinema and theater. Some of the subplots are presented in long, drawn-out scenes that take focus away from the central premise, even if they are occasionally effective and examine relevant topics within art production. With more focus and perhaps some small but meaningful changes of its own, there is something explosively bold and daring here, but the concept settles for minimal intrigue and throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. The uncomfortable mood and weirdness surrounding Jeanine’s life does stick, so for all those flaws, this isn’t an easy one to forget.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association, Critics Choice Association, and Online Film Critics Society. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews and follow my BlueSky or Letterboxd
