The psychological horror film praised by the director’s critic – already a darling of the UK’s indie awards season – is now finally available in the United States after several pandemic delays.
It has been almost a year and a half since Saint Maud it became one of the hottest films to emerge at the 2019 Toronto Film Festival.
British filmmaker Rose Glass’s debut feature – a deeply disturbing psychological horror after a concerned and devoted palliative caregiver (played perfectly by Morfydd Clark) who believes she was sent to care for her terminally ill client (the equally superb Jennifer Ehle) with a God – determined purpose – was an instant success among critics. A24 quickly snapped up US rights after a reported bidding war. Weeks later, the feature film supported by Film4 and BFI was hailed at the London Film Festival, with jury chief Wash Westmoreland describing it as the “emergence of a powerful new voice in British cinema”.
But just like Saint Maud was preparing for launch in early April, the pandemic has hit. Like many other things at the time, it was postponed. First – which now seems quite optimistic – for July and then, with the spiraling crisis, removed completely from the A24 candidate list.
In the UK, however, StudioCanal finally took the film to theaters (those that were open) in early October, in a period between closings. Exceeded expectations – coming in second at the opening weekend, behind Principle. Then, in December, he won a record 17 nominations at the British Independent Film Awards, including best film, best director, best script, best actress, best supporting actress, debuting director and a number of craft categories, and later also led the London The Critics Circle film rewards nominations.
With success across the Atlantic helping to keep the excitement going, Saint Maud is – finally – ready to satisfy the appetite for gender in the United States. A24 is giving the film a limited release on January 29, before going on to pay TV on Epix on February 12.
It was a long wait for Glass to see his much-celebrated hit film – now a kind of darling for independent prizes too – back in North America since the heady pre-Covid days of late 2019. But, as she explains The Hollywood Reporter from London, for a film that was initially conceived as an idea more than six years ago, she already had a lot of emotion.
It must be a relief that Saint Maud is finally coming out in the USA. Given the repeated delays, did you think that day would come?
I was starting to wonder. But, no, I always had faith. It is strange, because to me it seems that all the great things have already happened. How to finish the movie. And so we were lucky to do the kind of initial festival and see it in theaters for the first time with the public. And then getting caught by A24. That’s a lot of pretty substantial excitement to deal with.
It wasn’t long before the movie was released that much of the world started to block, right?
Yes. In April, we were just a few days away from flying to America to do a kind of tour for the launch there, when the first flight ban happened. It was really weird. Now, obviously, everything pales into total insignificance. I feel the need to put this massive warning on anything related to Saint Maud. Essentially, everything has been incredible on the cinema front. I couldn’t be happier.
When Saint Maud launched in the UK in early October, wasn’t it at the top of the box office before Tenet, at least for a few days?
I read this, but I’m not sure. It was definitely getting close. I think we were certainly number two for a while. But someone definitely told me that too. I cannot attest to that fact, but I agree with that!
But you’re crazy. Initially James Bond [No Time to Die] it was supposed to come out at the same time, so obviously all cinemas were waiting for it. And then that was pushed to 2021. I think a few days before we left Cineworld closed, which was unfortunate. But then, strangely, because of the state of the cinema, everything became a kind of news, and we probably ended up getting a little more attention than we would otherwise receive. It was like, “Well, James Bond didn’t come out, but …” And you had Boris Johnson encouraging people to go to the movies to keep the economy going. So we kind of piggybacked on all of this.
I spoke to your main star Morfydd Clark recently and she said that despite the long wait for Saint Maud to reach the screens in the United States, there still seems to be a big buzz about the film, with fans of the genre desperate for it to come out … which must be very good!
Much! Everything massively exceeded our hopes and expectations. I am very happy.
Breakout Morfydd Clark finally sees his ‘Saint Maud’ launched after delays in COVID-19
So, where did the original idea come from? The God-fearing hospice nurse is not your traditional trope of psychological terror.
I started creating a version of this when I was finishing film school in 2014.
In the beginning, the first thing I thought about was wanting Maud and God to be two hands. The basics were, here is a young woman who has the voice of God inside her head and falls in love with her. Then you would hear God’s voice throughout the whole thing, and it would basically be about their relationship and it would be some weird kind of perverted love affair.
But then, quickly, the voice thing started to seem a little complicated. I had never written a feature film story before, so I kind of spent the next two years in my spare time reviewing versions of that story. I started to wonder how this young woman got to that point in her life when the main relationship she has is a voice in her head and no one else seems to notice. So I started looking at their external relationships. I’m terrible at describing it, but it’s an amalgamation of things that interest me.
And how did you meet Morfydd, who is a revelation like Maud?
She is phenomenal – we were very lucky. We started looking for Mauds about a year before we shot the film. Everything seemed very precarious. We hadn’t received the green light, we just received a small budget to start casting and basically, see if we could find someone who could take the whole movie. Film4 was essentially like, start looking now, just in case it’s difficult.
Then, on a very traditional casting route, we saw a lot of fantastic actors, and our amazing casting director, Kharmel Cochrane, got Morfydd to send a tape. She was one of the last people we saw – and on this tape she had that kind of haunted / obsessive expression and she just has one of those faces where you want to see her. And Maud is practically in every scene and doesn’t say much most of the time, so we really needed someone who could transmit a lot and with a great range. She is a kind of comical character, who does a lot of horrible and morally reprehensible things, and is very arrogant and full of flaws, but we still need people to root for her and find her nice, funny and interesting.
So, did you know that you found your Maud instantly?
Yes, when she appeared, I think we were like, yes, we found her. But we still auditioned, at least twice. Just to be mean. And I think the financiers at the beginning were like, she’s great, but maybe she’s a little too sweet and shy. I think because they knew her from David Copperfield’s personal story and she had done some other dramatic things at the time.
And so I asked her to come back and do the scene where Maud reaches his lowest point and questions his faith and kind of pukes and has a fit and then levitates … which is really fun to shoot in a cast room under fluorescent lighting!
So, what comes after Maud?
I’m writing something and I hope it’s not far from a script. It is set in America and I would like to shoot this year. I’m developing with Film4 with the same producers, Oliver Kassman and Andrea Cornwell and co-writing with a friend Weronika Tofilska, with whom I studied at the National Film and TV School and is also a screenwriter / director.
And is it the same type of psychological horror or a world away?
For me, I say no, it’s not … but maybe it’s stylistically. It’s not a horror movie, but …
British Independent Film Awards: ‘Saint Maud’, ‘His House’, ‘Rocks’ lead nominations