Knocking is the 2021 directorial debut of Frida Kempff, adapted from the novel of the same name by Johan Theorin. I give this an 8, but Knocking is an interesting journey that doesn’t tie itself to a vague, numerical value very well. I really loved this but, as I'll explain below, that’s because of some choices I made as the credits rolled and I suspect this one may be more divisive than most.

In Knocking we follow Molly as she recovers from the trauma of losing her partner, Judith, to some unknown tragedy at the beach. We see her smile as she re-enters her normal life, we see her struggle as she unpacks boxes with Judith’s things, and we see her reach out for the impossibility of that connection still somehow lingering as she calls Judith’s phone simply to hear the recorded sound of her voice, requesting that you “leave a message after the tone”. The film is truly powerful at times and truly unsettling at others. Where it goes wrong is when it realizes it’s being those things and attempts to make the most of them, rather than letting them happen organically.

Visually, Knocking is a true treat. One of the rare films that manages to be both saturated and subdued at the same time; the visual language behind, in front of, and around our journey through Molly’s struggles is cultivated and perfectly bespoke in any given frame [2019’s masterpiece, Portrait of a Lady on Fire, comes to mind]. Colors are vibrant but dark, bold but quiet, and intentional but not obvious. Her world is alive with guiding hues and our engagement with it is made better for them. The further down her own rabbit hole she gets, the harder it is for us to make out our surroundings and find the bright spots within. The cinematography also emulates this in the way the camera moves with Molly through her varying degrees of control and is both powerful and intimate – truly the work of a master craftsman behind the lens.

Cecilia Milocco’s performance as Molly is reason enough to spend the 80-minutes of your day that Knocking will take up. Her command over subtle dismay, avid determination, and soul-crushing sorrow is the perfect companion to the above-mentioned camerawork. Like the world around her, Molly feels alive – if not wholly grounded… Or wholly pleased about it. As she struggles with controlling her roiling trauma, the minutia of her onscreen actions change as well and we share every moment of Molly’s turmoil, thanks to the tact and care put into her by Milocco.

So… where does the fault lie? What makes this a difficult thing to rate or recommend? That’s a hard question to answer. The only thing left to really talk about is the narrative but… that’s not exactly it. Where I think Knocking is difficult to pin down is that there's a lot left up to interpretation… If you want it to be.

You can take the film at face value and it totally, 100% works – you just end up with something a little unfulfilling like 2018’s Unsane. However, if you want to leave the world a little messier, a little more abstract – a little less safe or tidy or happy – I think that Knocking has a lot more to offer. More similar to 2017’s Super Dark Times than 2020’s Hunter Hunter; Knocking has a lot of potentially underpinned narrative elements that are never directly touched on.

In Super Dark those elements are clearly existent [you just have to do a lot of work to find them] and they transform the film from a weirdly uneven and almost incomplete teen-thriller, into an absolute narrative masterpiece. In Hunter, those elements are… there if you want to extrapolate-them-from-incomplete-data to make-a-mediocre-movie-actually-quite-good. Knocking falls right in the middle of this conundrum. The pieces are sort of there… but they are also sort of only there if you want them to be... but the movie survives well enough either way... but is definitely better if you do a little work.

So, it’s a tough call.

If you want to bend reality a little further than exactly what you’re shown – though not necessarily far away from what is suggested – I think Knocking is a real treat [similar to The Babadook but better in every way]. If you just want to watch something and be hit by the emotional turmoil of a lost-love story? This might miss you; though the filmmaking is still worth the watch… You should watch the aforementioned Portrait of a Lady on Fire if that’s what you’re looking for [And, really, you should watch that no matter what].

As for me? I choose to interpret on this one. I choose to think about things in the slightly more metaphysical from the way Knocking begins, meanders, and ends. I want to take nearly nothing in this film at face value, and the framework is there for me to do that.

And I, for one, love this movie when viewed in that light.