‹ Back

Nate Parker's NEWBORN Intrigues As a Social Study but Falters as Horror

By. Michael Fairbanks

 

Nate Parker’s Nat Turner biopic The Birth of a Nation was one of the most narcissistic and poorly executed vanity projects I have ever sat through. I have certainly had no complaints about not having to deal with him virtually at all (I avoided American Skin like the plague) ever since. It didn’t surprise me at all that his latest effort, NEWBORN, has been on ice since it was filmed all the way back in 2020. The film scene was desperate enough back then to let one of the most instantaneous flame outs in recent Hollywood history return to the fray. I went in quite positive that we were in for more drek from him, especially once I learned that his weak filmmaking chops would be applied to horror. However, I must admit that I spent much of  NEWBORN pleasantly surprised. For most of its’ runtime, Newborn is actually a prescient look into the psychological toll of solitary confinement on incarcerated people. Had this been a straightforward drama, it might’ve served as an outright comeback for Parker. Unfortunately, Parker makes the unfortunate choice to spiral this into a generic horror film, and sheds a great deal of goodwill in the process. 

 

The story follows Chris Newborn (David Oyelowo), a man who served nearly a decade in prison for vehicular manslaughter that his brother Keith (Jimmie Falls) committed. While inside, he defended a fellow inmate from a vicious attack by two prison guards, resulting in him being framed for their crime and placed in solitary for 7 years. Once released, his wife Tara (Olivia Washington) and young nonverbal son Jake (Aiden Stoxx) welcome him back into their lives with joy and understanding. They get an opportunity to take a trip out to a secluded resort overseen by the perpetually suspicious Hersh (Barry Pepper). Chris immediately takes a dislike to Hersh and finds it hard to relax as his lingering suffering starts to bubble to the surface. 

 

Parker very wisely decides to spare us his abysmal acting this time around. Instead, he gives the perpetually underrated David Oyelowo the chance to break our hearts. He is fantastic here, giving a performance that almost singlehandedly holds Newborn together often through very few words. Chris is not at all willing to talk about what happened to him inside that tiny room. We see his complete inability to even process his freedom spread across Oyelowo’s expressive face. He struggles to engage with Tara despite her saintly patience, focussing most of his positive attention on Jake since he has missed his entire life so far. When left to his own devices, Chris devolves into pure paranoia and Oyelowo masterfully conveys that none of it is intentional. Olivia Washington (daughter of Denzel!) is also very compelling as a woman driven by pure compassion. She had a blissful marriage with Chris before he was imprisoned and is determined to bring that back even when he starts to push back on her. 

 

Parker’s film is deliberately paced. Most of it is spent with Chris simply doing his best to keep his head above water and eerie delusions loom. This more subdued approach is effective and surprising from Parker, who had the subtlety of a bulldozer in The Birth of A Nation. His command of the camera hasn’t improved. The visual aesthetic is just as grey and drab as Birth even when it’s trying to convince us that Chris has a chance of a more positive way to move through the world. There are a couple of intriguing dreamlike flourishes that we see during the glimpses of Chris’ time in solitary, but those sequences are all too brief. If this had to be a horror film, Parker should’ve zeroed in on these sequences to drive the scares. Unfortunately, he has other ideas. 

 

 NEWBORN goes completely off the rails in the third act. Parker decides to essentially turn this into a more subdued Shining, with Chris experiencing a full homicidal psychological break. This shift involves a major twist that is predictable hack material. It’s a bleak and shallow view of mental health that does not inspire the empathy that Parker clearly believes it does. He cannot even commit to this shift into darkness. The ultimate resolution to this story is saccharine and cornball. Parker wants Newborn to be both an intense and psychologically scarring tale of fraying mental health and also a somewhat inspirational story about a man who may be able to overcome it. A better filmmaker might’ve been able to make it work, but Parker’s talents are soap opera level at best. 

It’s shocking that  NEWBORN is even mildly competent. Nate Parker should be deeply grateful to David Oyelowo for taking on this role, allowing him to focus on mildly sharpening his mediocre directing chops. There was a fantastic movie to be made with this story and it’s unfortunate that these are the hands it landed in. Nevertheless, it is certainly possible that it will be more meaningful to the community  NEWBORN spotlights, even if I believe that it ultimately stigmatizes more than humanizes.

 

For more new film releases check out Faces of Death and Over Your Dead Body. 

 

 

.