Like an angel singing out of tune, Frailty seems likely to be remembered for being forgotten. Though mostly unsuccessful, the film’s atmosphere and onscreen world are bound to stay with the viewer for a few days – it’s just not enough to recommend the film as a superior production. Most engaging is the social comment that builds within the film’s logical framework. The trope of religious brainwashing shines through like stars on the sea – and if you follow these stars you will come to understand the film’s introduced position. I’ll explain my use of ‘introduced’ by acknowledging that the conclusion overturns this message – which claims that only crazy, desperate people see God. This theme is asserted mildly at the outset of the film, and reinforced later through the character of Fenton. The audience is introduced to the Meiks family – Dad played by Bill Paxton, Fenton (played as an adult by Matthew McConaughey and as a youth by Andrew O’Leary), and Adam (Jeremy Sumpter) – all left desperate, and a bit crazy over the loss of their wife and mother respectively. They form a tight-knit bond until Dad is seemingly visited by an angel who delivers his life’s mission: to destroy demons (which look, act, and… are human).
Paxton, who directs here for the first time, would like the concept of demon-humans to remain ambiguous, but Brent Hanley’s script isn’t that deft. Instead, since we are fully aware that Dad has gone crazy, we can only sympathize and connect with the two children. But to the viewer’s dismay, the unfolding of the narrative undercuts what should have been a straightforward and open relationship with Fenton who – despite the inclination of his father and younger brother to mask murder as divine guidance – wants no part of such blatant misinterpretation.
Going hand in hand with Hanley’s misguided script is the poorly arranged scene selection. Had the film begun with more of an emotional ploy – like the first murder – it would have had a different, more effective tone. In stead, the audience is rendered passive, as we know from the start that we’re safe. Where Hanley and Paxton think they’ve scripted a non-schematic character (a father who performs murder, but loves his children nonetheless), they’ve instead committed a structural blunder in that we never mistrust the fact that Dad will not, for any reason, kill his non-obliging son.
Paxton sets out to cheat his audience in his employment of the horrific. He can find a way to applaud his efforts for implying carnage rather than resorting to the exploits of gratuitous violence – but the audience is cheated with the illegitimate scares set by sound effects. Getting an audience to jump in reaction to jarring rumbles from loud speakers doesn’t constitute legitimate horror – and this element is almost completely lost if the movie is viewed with a lesser sound system.
What Paxton and Hanley do best is posit challenging questions. If Dad is only abiding by his intuition, or “gut,” what does this mean for the rest of us who are convinced that we’re acting according to real purpose? Along with Dad, there are religious cults, gang members, Mafiosi, corrupt politicians, even strict and abusive parents who swear by the righteousness of their decisions.
Amid some self-conscious acting (except for the refreshing portrayals by O’Leary and Sumpter), a story that operates in a world too self-contained to be frightening, and a narrative logic that self-destructs, the question of righteousness is the film’s most horrific.
