My problem with Saint Maud is I was expecting a horror movie and this isn't. Maud is a character study of a young nurse (Morfydd Clark) in emotional turmoil. Saint Maud sets a dour mood. It favors symbolism over hard core action. I'm not saying it's a bad movie. I didn't find enough to hold on to. Details about Maud, the person, are sparse and come too late in the movie. By then I had lost interest.

Maud is a hospice nurse for Amanda (Jennifer Ehle),a former dancer suffering from terminal cancer. She holds to her devout faith with slavish piousness. She left her previous nursing job abruptly, we aren't sure why. She sees things no one else sees that border on the paranormal. She comes to believe she has been sent to save Amanda's soul. Why? I didn't understand why Maud was obsessed with Amanda. The two women didn't really connect and had little in common.

The character of Amanda is excellent, by the way. She was full of contradictions, capable of great tenderness and terrible cruelty. When she is on screen I wanted to know more about her but the focus remains squarely on Maud.

Clark's performance as Maud is empathetic but a bit one note. She too often has a deer in the headlights gaze and seems out of step with the world around her. If that is the intent, Clark did her job well. I wasn't able to connect with the character. She experiences one ominous happening after another, but the action doesn't build to a focused point. I felt like I was drifting at sea watching Maud. She is clearly a young woman full of doubt and conflict. Yet, I wasn't getting to know the real her.

The strange events happening may be real or may all be in the mind of one disturbed individual. We are never given enough concrete evidence to decide. Perhaps that's the point but after a while I felt like I was running on a treadmill. It takes until the last few scenes to move the narrative forward. These scenes are genuinely scary, disturbing and moving. Sadly, the payoff comes too late, in my opinion.

Maud (Morfydd Clark) is an oddly shy nurse caring for dying Amanda (Jennifer Ehle) in her home. First time filmmaker Rose Glass has an interesting sensibility. It can feel slow but it's always compelling. The film has a great atmosphere and a sense of dread coming out of Maud. Something bad is going on in her and it's a matter of waiting for her to disintegrate.

Here's another one I've previously heard a lot of good things about: SAINT MAUD (2019),a slow-burning slice of British horror about a young nurse whose latest role is as a caregiver to a terminally ill former dancer. As the plot slowly unfolds, it turns out the nurse is a committed Christian who believes her client's soul is in danger and who'll subsequently do anything to save her. Not a bad set-up there, but as it turns out this is a horror film for people who don't really like horror; in other words, there's not really much of it around.

I spent the whole of the running time awaiting the inevitable plot twist, which was saved for the last five minutes, and it all felt fairly obvious and ordinary in its execution. It's one of those modern films that's constantly dark and dreary, shot in rainy Scarborough with a depressing look and feel to it. The actors aren't bad, particularly Jennifer Ehle who I've always liked since seeing her in THE CAMOMILE LAWN a few decades ago, but the script is dire and the religious stuff quite turgid and dull. Like THE BABADOOK I saw this over-advertised as the "scariest movie ever" and like that one I fail to see the fuss. I'm afraid that as a character study I found this quite the bore.