‘Frankenstein’ Meets Motherhood in Chilling ‘Birth/Rebirth’
Marin Ireland is one of the finest actresses working today—a chameleon who’s comfortable in virtually every type of role (as evidenced by her recent standout contributions to Y: The Last Man and Justified: City Primeval) and who’s particularly well-suited for horror. Her headlining turn in Bryan Bertino’s The Dark and the Wicked is nothing short of phenomenal, and she once again demonstrates her scary-movie bona fides with Birth/Rebirth, a chilling riff on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in which she stars as a “mad scientist princess bitch” with a monstrous professional impulse—and biological imperative—to create new life.
The impressive feature debut of director Laura Moss, Birth/Rebirth (in theaters Aug. 18, and afterwards on Shudder) reimagines Shelley’s classic tale through a modern feminine perspective, focusing its attention on two women brought together by fate and bonded by kindred maternal instincts.
A pathologist at Bronx Memorial hospital, Rose (Ireland) is cold to the point of cruelty, her eyes stern (and ringed with dark circles), her expressions icy, and her every utterance a case study in dismissive, heart-heated curtness. Embodied by Ireland with a frosty severity that’s frequently amusing, she may be the least friendly person alive. At least on the surface, that makes her the polar opposite of Celie (Judy Reyes), a single mom and OB nurse at the same medical facility who’s kind to her patients and loving toward her daughter Lila (A.J. Lister).