I wasn’t sure what to expect with MARIONETTE, directed by Elbert van Strien. The general plot focuses on the child psychiatrist, Dr. Marianne Winter (Thekla Reuten), traveling to Scotland to start her life anew and becoming the therapist for a young boy (Elijah Wolf). While providing him therapy, she begins to notice that there might be more to him than meets the eye and in fact, he may be able to control the future through his drawings.

I will admit that I thought that this was going to be another bland retelling of a supernatural child and kind of sifting through that. The beginning itself is rather bland and listless, but under inspection, by design. I’m sure with a rewatch I would notice a lot more to the over-arching story and the ultimate twist.

Stay with MARIONETTE, though, because at first, the acting will seem stilted and dry, again I believe by design, as it begins to flow when the real and main story begins to pick up. The acting is smart, the cinematography is smooth and stylish, and the music is beautiful and haunting. You may not enjoy the twist (though, I did), but I think you’ll enjoy the lead-up as it’s smooth and gradual. You are not just dropped on your head like in Jake Mahaffy’s Reunion. No, MARIONETTE slowly builds and is carefully planned.

The only flaw, which isn’t all that much of a flaw in hindsight, that I will point out is that it is not Scottish enough. I could easily understand everybody in the film because the accents were very light. And, I don’t know, when it comes to the Scottish accent, I want to work at understanding it — I’m masochistic that way.

Otherwise, MARIONETTE is not exactly scary, but has tremendous heart and deals with loss in a way that I haven’t seen in a long time. I’ll probably buy the film so I can rewatch it to analyze it some more…

Or maybe that’s just van Strien pulling my strings.

MARIONETTE is now on Cable & Digital On-Demand! The film will then later be on iTunes, Vudu/Fandango, and Google Play starting December 3.