You Won’t Be Alone Movie Review

You Won’t Be Alone” is a foreign language supernatural folktale, told in a meandering method. The focus is on an ancient scary story of witches in the mountain villages of Macedonia. The scenery of the area is beautiful, and the acting is strong. But this would not be awarded first place by the Macedonia Tourism Board.

Far away in time (late 19th century) and in place (the Macedonia mountain villages), the superstitious folk tell tales of ‘Old Maid Maria’ (played by Anamaria Marinca). The extremely scarred Maria is known as the Wolf-Eateress, because she is a witch and a shape shifter. There is a mother named Yoana (played by Kamka Tocinovski) who has given birth to young baby.

Maria comes to take the baby, because blood of the young ones is what keeps that old witch alive. Youna pleads with Maria to leave her baby, named Nevena, alone for now. She can come back later for her when she is grown up a little more. Maria agrees, but first she slices out the tongue of the baby, rendering Nevena mute for life.

Yoana raises Nevena (now played by Sara Klimoska) by keeping her in a hidden cave until she is sixteen. The Wolf-Eateress Maria comes back to claim Nevena and kills Yoana. Maria takes Nevena out into the world, a place she really has never seen before. Maria marks Nevena with her curse marks, and she will turn into a witch herself. Nevena misses her ‘whisper-mama’, and wants nothing to do with Maria.

When Nevena comes across some villagers cutting down corn, she watches from a distance. There is a young woman named Bosilka (played by Noomi Rapace) who has just given birth. She is killed by Nevena, and Nevena is able to take over the body. Nevena (now in Bolsika’s body) starts to live among the villagers. Her husband is rough and cruel, and the customs and traditions are confusing to her. She wants to be away from Wolf-Eateress Maria, but every once in a while, the witch comes back to pester her.

Nevena tires of the abuse and wonders what it would be like to be a man. She seduces a young peasant man named Boris (played by Carloto Cotta). He is killed and Nevena takes over his body. Nevena (now as Boris) is still socially awkward and silent. She (as a he) now learns into the hard work and the pain of physical labor. Her inner monologue is always non-stop, and she/he again feels like will not fit in to this world. Old Maid Maria is never too far away, and she comes back often to tell Nevena that life as a human is a horrible existence.

One day ‘Boris’ (Nevena) is first on the scene of a young girl who has fallen to her death from a cliff. Nevena/Boris sees this as a chance to take over the body of the dead girl. Biliana (played by Anastasija Karanovich) is the young girl who is now the new resting place for Nevena. She is able to grow up and have a childhood that she never had before. As Nevena is growing up, she hears the folk tale / scary story of ‘Old Maid Maria’.  Now she knows why Maria is so terribly scarred. She was burned at the stake as witch, hundreds of years ago.

Nevena grows up as Biliana (now played by Alice Englert).  Biliana gets married and she delivers a baby. Hey, who invited the Wolf-Eateress Maria for dinner? Maria is still tracking down Nevena, no matter whose body she has at the moment. ‘Old Maid Maria’ wants something from Nevena: her newly born baby. The scarred hag of a witch is coming to claim a new victim.

But will Nevena finally be powerful enough to prevent Maria from getting what she wants? Will Nevena be satisfied to grow into a body that will eventually die? Is there anything in Macedonia other than superstitious people, corn, sheep, pigs and weird witches?

“You Won’t Be Alone” is a very slow-moving character study of witch in Macedonia. The story is odd and meandering, but the acting is generally very strong. The whole thing is a pretentious and off-putting, so most audiences will not relate. There is some impressive make-up design for ‘Old Witch Maria’. She shows up all wrinkly and with severe burn marks. But I kept thinking about the Heath Ledger ‘Joker’ character – “Do you wanna know how I got these scars?”

The director has studied the works of Terrance Malick and Robert Eggers. Malick makes slow-moving movies with deep, ponderous themes.  Eggers makes movies with naturalistic horror elements. So this movie has quite a bit borrowed from both of those directors. That makes for an odd combination. It is also in a foreign language, and the subtitles show up with a translation that is awfully difficult to follow.

“You Won’t Be Alone” is the name of this movie. But with the Macedonian language (with subtitles) and the slow non-scary horror theme, look around the theater. You might find that you are alone.