Come Back to Me, an adaptation of a book that I do not plan to read, is a horror film about a young, grad student whose life gets turned upside down after a weird neighbor moves in next door, but can’t explain what is happening to her. It is one of those films where the viewer, especially if the viewer is a woman, basically can guess what happened immediately, but the pleasure of the movie lurks in whether or not you want to figure out the logistics.
Come Back to Me promisingly introduces Biblical themes, alludes to the problematic nature of pornography which commodifies sex and divorces it from meaningful interaction with another person, compares and contrasts men’s ideas of women’s roles in their lives versus the reality of interacting with them as people and depicts how these expectations are detrimental to women. All of these elements fail to add complexity to the overall narrative. There was a real missed opportunity to fully explore the ambiguities of paternity. I will admit that I did not predict how the supernatural element would affect the character with the power. Shout out to the bartender who ended up being my favorite character for being the only adult male with some level of maturity.
If different people were cast as the couple, actors who seemed more aligned with their characters’ profile, Come Back to Me would be a better movie. Even though the wife was a grad student, her demeanor did not reflect someone who is interested in that kind of field, but did complement her husband’s personality as depicted on screen. I felt like the movie was trying to have an underlying sinister mood of this affable dude bro, and I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never does. He is just a fairly normal guy who was waiting for the opportunity to throw his wife’s field of study back into her face during an argument. How did that not happen earlier in their marriage? The acting is not that great, and the characters are not that interesting.
The only momentum is discovering how it is happening, and the actual reveal is disturbing and chilling. If Come Back to Me was shorter, it would make a perfect episode for The Outer Limits or if Lifetime decided to make a horror movie otherwise I did not even need the supernatural element to believe that something was happening.