With her feature debut, “Honeymoon," co-writer/director Leigh Janiak uncovers a unique corner of a location that passed cliché years ago, and places two characters in the center who draw your empathy rather than mock it. It’s in the performances—Rose Leslie and Harry Treadaway as a newlywed couple—and Janiak’s approach, a quietly disturbing, subjective look at a bizarre event that divides the pair on their weekend cabin retreat.
That emotional subjectivity is what elevates the film (co-written with Phil Graziadei) from its horror counterparts, focusing in on, as our B+ review from SXSW states, “how much of your own identity you have to give up when you are in a long-term relationship.” When we talked to Janiak recently in Los Angeles, she explained how staying rooted in Treadaway’s POV shaped the film.
“It becomes a very different movie if you're inside the person who's decaying and changing,” she said, “For me, it was about watching, and questioning how well you...
