The film opens with a young woman having a difficult childbirth while her uptight mother (Lin Shaye) looks on. It's assumed she dies. Then, 18 years later, her daughter Grace is attending her first year of college. She's a fish out of water. She meets her roommate and makes some friends. She likes a boy named Brad. But she starts seeing disturbing images of herself--with black eyes--in the mirror--and begins to hallucinate. At a party she thinks she killed her roommate by pushing her off a third story balcony. Brad thinks she's crazy. She blacks out to awaken in a hospital. Her grandmother picks her up and takes her home and informs her that she's taken her out of school. The girl is distraught because she liked it there. Two Catholic priests show up and they seem to want Grace to stay put in town. Grace's symptoms increase until she begins to lash out at her repression--and the people about her. She also learns who her father is, which is not a huge surprise.
All the elements here are familiar and predictable but what makes GRACE worth watching is how the movie is shot--it's entirely from the pint of view of the possessed girl, which is very effective when the priests try to exorcise the demon from her. Recommended.
The film opens with a young woman having a difficult childbirth while her uptight mother (Lin Shaye) looks on. It's assumed she dies. Then, 18 years later, her daughter Grace is attending her first year of college. She's a fish out of water. She meets her roommate and makes some friends. She likes a boy named Brad. But she starts seeing disturbing images of herself--with black eyes--in the mirror--and begins to hallucinate. At a party she thinks she killed her roommate by pushing her off a third story balcony. Brad thinks she's crazy. She blacks out to awaken in a hospital. Her grandmother picks her up and takes her home and informs her that she's taken her out of school. The girl is distraught because she liked it there. Two Catholic priests show up and they seem to want Grace to stay put in town. Grace's symptoms increase until she begins to lash out at her repression--and the people about her. She also learns who her father is, which is not a huge surprise.
