The Power (2021)

 

The gist of it: 1974, East London infirmary, the trade union and government are at each other's throats about better wages, using a coal shortage to hopefully gain leverage, resulting in electricity blackouts at night. A trainee nurse with a good heart that means well, Valerie (Rose Williams), starts work at the hospital, seemingly making enemies despite her best efforts to behave and do her best. A matron (Diveen Henry) sees her as an immediate threat and a nurse on her floor, "Babs" (Emma Rigby), warns her not to mess with a certain pediatric doctor she has an eye on. Because she is also pretty, Val is also seen as a threat to other women, even though she never warrants it or asks for it. Val was an orphan who never knew her parents, of a certain Our Lady's, very religious. She also has a fear of the dark and seems to have  paranormal experiences in the hospital...or is it all a trick of the mind? Did something happen in the past that manifests itself on this particular first night on the job?

This and that: The nurses are miserable, the doctors, for the most part, look down on them. Even a night watchman lusts after the nurses with his helmet light, showing his office to Val, as the walls are papered with nude pictorials. He grades Val by an attractive scale, inviting her in his office, ridiculing her when she just wants to find medical charts at the orders of Babs, who sends her down the hospital out of spite. There is a lot of pent-up rage. You can feel the bitterness and resentment at a system that benefits some and diminishes others. This might be 1974, but it could just as well be 2022.

The willies: There is a little girl named Saba who knows what is going on, perhaps because she is ill. It seems the specter of this young woman is inhabiting Val and could be a danger to anyone near her. A girl named "Dirty Gail", a patient no one was fond of in the hospital, perhaps using Val as a vessel for revenge.

There's an internal struggle within Val to try and fight Gail from using her, but revenge against the watchman and Babs is strong for what they did to her. The burning furnace is a particularly visceral memory that continues to surface. 

Paintings on the wall of the children's ward are a painted canvas for this big dirty tragic secret. Gail lets Val know what that secret is. The key is that Neville and Babs were just participants willing to help "the power", a seemingly kind pediatric doctor who is far more sinister than he looks.

Also, why Val is selected is also important. She herself experienced something in the dark, forced to take back what happened to her by a headmaster. And the operations manager of the hospital, too, knew his staff was rotten and did nothing. 

Taking back power taken from you is the important message I got from this. Those who are innocent, corrupted against their will by those far more powerful than them, enabled through a spiritual "strength" the chance to confront some of these cretins and mete out deserved justice. Great setting for the film, but the plot is really familiar. A restless spirit finds kinship with a mortal who has been through trauma herself, using her as a host until those who harmed the dead person have been confronted and suffer for their crimes. Back story is revealed and the key villains emerge to clear the murky waters. 

I like that the matron would appear to be cruel and hard, but ultimately proves she's not some simple heel to boo. She's been hardened by an awful and difficult medical system that will grind you to dust if you don't have emotional strength and a certain steel resolve. And we see that the matron recognizes the injustice of what happened to Gail and could happen to Val if she doesn't step up and point the way to an escape. I like how there are three running in the dark towards an exit at the end. ***/*****

***Minor gripe regarding the message: much like Black Christmas (2019), pretty much every single man in the film is either a monster or serious peace of shit. Even a janitor pulls at Val's dress and the one proposed good guy in the film proves to be the worst of them all.***