Suffer
Director: Kerry Carlock, Nicholas Lund-Ulrich
Writer: Kerry Carlock, Nicholas Lund-Ulrich
Cast: Naomi McDougall Jones, Scott Beehner, Jennifer Sorenson, Matisha Baldwin, Aaron LaPlante
Seen on: 30./31.12.2025
[Screener review.]

Plot:
Queen Emmeline was ousted from the throne and killed by the Scarlet Prince (Scott Beehner) who now rules the country with an iron fist, trying to eradicate any last sense of sympathy for the former queen. Thus he also sentenced the queen’s handmaiden Ida Blye (Naomi McDougall Jones) to die in the wilderness, outfitted with a mask that makes it impossible for her to be heard. But Ida received a last gift from her queen – and a task: to destroy the Scarlet Prince. And she is determined to fulfill her task.

Suffer is a feminist fairy tale with some very nice touches despite the obviously small budget. While it does have some weaknesses in the narration, I thought that it more than makes up for those with its creativity, message and good sense of style.

Suffer is an indie production. That it doesn’t have a Hollywood style budget is both noticeable and a pity, as it brings a lot of fantastic ideas to the table that it can’t fully explore – mostly due to budget restraints, I’d assume. If it had fully explored everything that is hinted at, we’d probably be looking at a trilogy instead of a 90 minute film. I found myself thinking a few times that I would have liked to see more – from more details to more backstory to more extras. (Also, there is one moment where the screen fades to black just when a fight against some creatures starts which feels a bit like a cop-out.)

At the same time, Carlock and Lund use those details to make their world rich, and to get some great images from their fantasy setting. Be it the herd of dinosaurs that is running through the background, the Prince’s hands that grab his knight through the earth (a fantastic image, one of my favorite ideas of the film) when he needs him, or the strange moon that hangs in the sky, they keep surprising us and cinematographer April Frame has an excellent way of capturing the landscape around Ida.

But not only the cinematography deserves explicit comment, I also really liked the score by Joanna Karselis that strikes just the right tones, especially in the faster moments. (Sidenote, it is great to see that this film not only has a female co-director, but also cinematographer and composer – roles that go to men way too often.) Plus, I really liked Naomi McDougall Jones’s presence and her performance. Due to the silencing mask Ida wears for most of the film, she doesn’t get to say much, but it isn’t necessary anyway.

The movie has a lot to say about oppression, about finding your voice, about finding community. At times, that message becomes a little over-simplified, maybe, but it is a fairy tale after all. The bigger flaw in the narration was that it relied a lot on characters explaining things on screen – probably because of the fact that it just isn’t a trilogy. What it didn’t really explain though, was the red door and the power behind the Prince, that left a couple of question marks for me.

Be that as it may, I had a really good time with Suffer and was thoroughly engaged the whole time. And that is more than I can say for a lot of other films (with bigger budgets).

Summarizing: worth seeing.