Wil Williams Writes

Things Heard & Seen is one of my most watched films on Netflix. I have seen the entire film at least three times, and the last 10 minutes or so countless more. I’m obsessed with it. I think about it at least twice a month and have since it came out in 2021. I tell people about it every time I get a chance.

It’s just so terrible. I’m in love with it. Things Heard & Seen is my toxic girlfriend who hates me and who I hate. I have to tell you about how messy she is. I have to show her off to you. Isn’t she so fun?

Most recently, I was reminded of Things Heard & Seen most recently when a friend of mine took my recommendation on watching The Night House, a tremendous and beautiful film that has been so woefully overlooked.

See, somehow, Things Heard & Seen and The Night House have a ton in common — a weird amount, actually. A really important difference between the two films, though, is that The Night House is a good film. Probably go watch The Night House if you’d like a horror film experience that will be memorable in a good way.

But that’s not what you want, is it, you little freak? You saw this post’s title and clicked on it. I know what you’re into. Let’s go.

The ending

Hear me out. You should go experience the ending of this film before you continue reading. I promise that the context of the rest of the film does not prepare you for the ending even a little, so you can watch it without worrying about being left behind. I promise that you will be as on the same page as anyone else watching the full film.

You may even want to watch only the ending, especially after you’ve seen it. The ending is so truly, deeply entertaining, and the rest of the two-hour film feels like a four-hour film, easy. It’s a slog, and we’ll talk about that later.

Right now, I want you to go to the film on Netflix; it’s a Netflix Original. Then, I want you to navigate to one hour and forty-nine minutes. Then, I want you to watch until the credits start rolling. Finally, come back here, and we can celebrate together.

I’ll even give some space to make sure you don’t spoil yourself at least until you’ve seen the ending raw. Please. For me.

Thomas Cole, The Voyage of Life: Manhood, 1842

Thomas Cole, Tornado in an American Forest, 1831

Thomas Cole, The Voyage of Life: Old Age, 1842

Did you have fun? Did you gasp? Did you laugh? Did you say anything out loud? Did you clap? Did you have fun? Did you like it? Yeah. That’s my girlfriend. That’s my evil girlfriend Things Heard & Seen (2021). She’s bad at everything.

The plot

Now that you’ve seen the ending, I am going to explain the plot in full. Buckle in and trust me — and know that from here on out, the spoilers are going to flow freely. I will be writing this plot summary as I watch the film yet again, just for you, sicko.

Things Heard & Seen is a horror film about a sophisticated family moving from their Manhattan apartment to a haunted Upstate farm so the husband can pursue a new job, despite the wife not wanting to leave her life in the city. And then, things get worse a lot!

Catherine Claire (Amanda Seyfried) is an art restorer and a young mother. Her husband, George (James Norton), lands a teaching job at a prestigious art school in upstate New York. His purpose here is twofold and explicit: he wants to be a sort of Henry Davis Thoreau, writing his Great American Novel in the beautiful wooded farmland, while teaching the bright youth about art history; he also wants to push their family into more traditional domesticity, with his wife taking most duties in the house and raising their daughter outside of the city. Catherine loves her work, she loves her friends, and she loves her city — but she eventually agrees to leave.

When Catherine first meets her new home, she’s greeted with a stunning Upstate New York historic home on lush green farmland. The previous owners left a piano, which Catherine is delighted by. It’s in these moments with stunning cinematography, great music, and some ominous foreshadowing that make you think, “Hmm . . . maybe this movie is going to be good? It feels good.” Hope you’re a masochist!

We switch frequently between two perspectives: Catherine, who investigates this house and the community around her, and George, who is doing anything to keep people from investigating him. We see George stumble about some questions from his department chair regarding Swdenborg’s influence on the painter George Inness. We see Catherine struggling with her plot-relevant bulimia until — gasp — her scale is broken, seemingly by perhaps some friendly ghost? Or maybe . . . a guardian angel? Who’s to say. Whatever. She starts wearing this ghost’s ring.

We see Catherine employ the help of some local . . . guys? . . . as handymen for her house. They’re brothers with ominous backstories. One is an adult hot guy and the other is a sad-looking tween. Meanwhile, George is doing a terrible job trying to cheat on Catherine with a young woman he meets in a bookstore, Willis (Natalia Dwyer). We also find out that Willis is friends with the elder handyman, and Willis knows George is married and clearly a fucking loser.

And the house, oh boy, it’s getting haunteder for sure. Catherine comments on the smell of carbon monoxide in their bedroom, but George ignores it. She finds old sheet music for Mozart’s “Lacrimosa,” as well as an old bible with the former homeowners’ names scratched out, with another word scribbled next to them: “DAMNED.” She also says this out loud when she reads it. It’s great. So goofy. Beautifully cliche and unnecessary. Also, the daughter keeps seeing the ghost of a lady hanging out politely, I guess. Catherine investigates the house’s history at the local historical society, where she also asks to volunteer with them.

We see a photograph of their house from when it was built hung up on a wall in the historical society. It’s an American Gothic pastiche, and it will come back later, insanely.

Catherine starts making friends with George’s coworker, Justine, and her husband, Bram. Justine comments on George’s tiny little ship paintings, saying they’re great work, and the two hang out for dinner and weed at Justine and Bram’s also gorgeous home. Catherine and Justine hit it off like nobody’s business, but on the drive back, George is pissed and stoned. He accelerates in the car without stopping, even as Christine panics. The two argue by saying all of their thoughts and feelings out loud at each other, directly. George winds up hurting Christine in the chaos of it all.

All the while, Willis tells Elder Handyman (I’m sure he has a name) that she knows George is a bad, bad man because she wants to fuck him. Girl, really? At one point, we see them post-sex, and it’s so funny: they’re both fully clothed except for socks, the bed is made and tidy, they’re both sweatless and pristine, and all Willis does is zip up her pants. But yeah no, they were fucking nasty right before we cut to them, absolutely.

We start getting more and more clues that George is a big fraud, because of course he is. He goes out on the department chair’s boat where he tells him he stole his dead brother’s diary. The department chair comes back to George and Catherine’s and immediately senses the presence of a ghost. Catherine is so relieved, and he promises not to tell George. At a party Catherine throws for their neighbors, she finally find out the truth about her house: the previous owners died in there bigtime, with the husband killing the wife and then himself. The only survivors . . . were those handymen guys, ooh! In this scene, we get Catherine yelling, “I’m such a fool!” Awesome, I love when people yell the word “fool” in a script.

Ghost shit is going crazy. There’s a very dramatic seaonce with the department chair in which we reveal what’s going on: the dead wife is a good nice ghost, and her husband is a bad evil ghost, and he’s getting in her way and trying to keep killing people. They’re locked in an eternal ghost-type Pokemon battle together.

God, this is so boring to write, even with how crazy every scene is. Are you bored? Watching it is boring too, trust me.

Things start unraveling. George is confronted by a former professor who points out that George never finished his thesis — which he used to get this job — and never actually graduated. That makes its way back to the department head, who says he can’t ignore the information. Catherine, fully fed up with George’s bullshit, starts cheating on him with Elder Handyman. We find out that the little paintings were not done by George, but his dead brother, whose work and knowledge he stole to further his career as a hot art man. The evil husband ghost is talking to George to make him eviller, which is consistently hilarious.

There’s also a scare scene in which Christine pulls an umbilical cord and a fetus out of the garbage disposal in her sink. Okay!

And then, George goes to have The Talk (get fired) with the department chair, on his boat. George comes back alone and sopping wet. Justine sees him and confronts him, giving him warning not to harm Christine. As she drives away, George tails her, then winds up driving her off the road and into a tree.

She winds up in the hospital, comatose . . . for now. Yes, this film has a convenient coma plot line, for real.

And then, get this: George kills Catherine. With an axe. Like, to death. This struggle involves another ghost Pokemon battle that is mindblowingly bad. The protagonist of the film. He kills her and she’s dead for the rest of the movie. I kept thinking, “Surely she’s going to come back somehow, no?” Unless you count a spectral appearance as another friendly ghost, no.

The husband calls the cops to try to act innocent. Nobody is buying it, but the sheriff says he can’t arrested George without more evidence. If only they had some kind of a witness to George’s crimes . . .

The ending, for real

Justine is sleeper agent awoken by the friendly ghosts. It is time for her to come back to life. She sends an ominous message to George, who is staying at his parents’ house: she’s awake, and she remembers everything. We see such a funny little shot of the friendly ghosts’ outlines in the rain on the window of Justine’s hospital room. It’s so stupid, and it rules.

George’s response is to do a Patrick Bateman GRWM, being spoken to by the evil husband ghost. He takes the family boat out on the water.

It starts to storm.

The scenery around him turns into a painting. It looks terrible. An upside down cross glows in the sky as a gate to hell opens in the water and swallows up George and his boat. It’s crazy. It’s so crazy.

And then, as if that wasn’t enough, we zoom out to see that it has literally become a painting on the wall of the historical society. We then pan and zoom into the photograph of the house and its original owners, with the wife wearing the ring Catherine later wore. Okay!

And that’s how it ends. It’s unreal. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s phenomenal. It’s so, so, so bad.

The cast

I watched Things Heard & Seen for exactly three reasons:

1. I really love horror movies,
2. It was 2021, and
3. It had Rusty Venture!

Rusty Venture of the cult classic show The Venture Bros. is played by James Urbaniak, and as one of the many who discovered the show in 2020 and fell in love with it, I was thrilled to see his name pop up in this cast for a horror movie I could stream. He plays Janice’s husband, Bram, and he’s really good in it! He adds a lot of richness, realness, and interiority to what could otherwise be such a dull role. He brings nuance to a script that consistently feels like a brick. It’s a really good performance. There’s also this moment during their dinner party where he has a line that is mixed so loud in the walla and it cracks me up every time: over everyone chatting, you hear him very clearly say, “I first wore glasses when I was three . . .”

Rhea Seehorn, though, is clearly the beating heart of the film. You can see the Succession in how she’s directed — more on that later — and she really delivers. She’s naturalistic and pointed. She’s perfectly believable even as she mutters each line of the nightmare script. She cares, and we feel it. She’s not going to take any shit from her friend’s stupid idiot husband, and we feel it. Each scene she’s in, at least until she’s sleeper agent activated, gives the film promise. It makes you feel like maybe it isn’t as bad at it clearly is. This is why it might also be the cruelest performance, both to the audience and Seehorn herself. She deserved so much better.

Amanda Seyfried is a formidable actor, and she does give a lot of heart in this role. Her talent just cannot break through the script and the direction. She’s made to flip between cold austerity and melodrama back and forth. It seems like she is given few consistent motivations. It’s a mess of a role to have to nail, and the filmmakers will not let her anyway.

Natalia Dyer as Willis is difficult to take seriously. Something about her reads as much younger and fake cool than I think was intentional. It feels like you’re watching emotional dress up with mom’s heels. It feels like a high school freshman doing the Jesse monologue in ‘Night, Mother. Dyer is great in Stranger Things, so again, I’m going to pin the blame here on the direction.

And James Norton . . . oh, James Norton. What was this all about, buddy? I have only seen Norton previously in an episode of Black Mirror and as a small role in Greta Gerwig’s Little Women. He was fine in both, but neither role was very demanding. I’m sure that he’s given competent performances many times before and will again, based on the careers of the rest of this cast list. But this performance was so funny. It’s such a delicious mix of self-serious and super goofy. It’s so broad, but seemingly so unaware of its broadness. He’s so wet and yelling the whole time.

I think I choose to believe that James Norton knew what this film was going to be and leaned in so hard. I am choosing to believe that he is brilliant, and he was having a great time.

The crew

So, about those directors. Things Heard & Seen was written and directed by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, who share one single Wikipedia page. This married creative couple seems very sweet. I love that they work together so often, and that they switch which order they’re credited in at random. That’s lovely.

And while I’ve never seen their other films, I have seen some of their directorial work in TV: they worked on three episodes of beloved Succession, including the critically beloved episode, “Tailgate Party.” This pair can direct well. They can direct great episodes of the best TV show. They can direct one of the best scenes in that show!

So like, what the fuck was this?

I see some factors in the duo’s filmgoraphy that gives some hints. This was their first film since 2015. Maybe that 7-year gap, even while they directed Succession and Shameless, could have been a hindrance. Things Heard & Seen is also their first horror film, which certainly shows in the stumbling and stiff way the actors are pushed from scene to scene.

But otherwise, this is baffling to me. It didn’t have to go like this. They could have done a good job, I think. They just really didn’t.

All Things Aren’t Things or Are

I want to take a look at this film’s Wikipedia page with you real quick. Here’s a screenshot, captured on April 12th, 2024:

Does anything jump out to you as strange?

When I checked the Wikipedia page for this insane film, I remember feeling shocked that the book the film is based on did not even have its own page, nor does its writer. This novel was turned into an Amanda Seyfried film by Searchlight on Netflix. How did All Things Cease to Appear (crazy title! crazy!!!) get turned into a full film by a real studio when it wasn’t even important or popular enough to have its own Wikipedia page? How did this author get connected to sell the rights when she isn’t well-known enough to have her own Wikipedia page either?

Was the book as unhinged as the movie?

There are somewhat positive reviews of All Things Cease to Appear on TIME and Kirkus Reviews. The author has written other novels that seem well-received. I hope she got paid lots for the rights to this book. I hope she is enjoying her privacy. I hope her lack of a Wikipedia page is a relief instead of a slight.

But like. Seriously. How the hell was this made?

I cannot find any more information on the how or why of this film. There’s a select few interviews, and they really only go surface-level. I would really love more information. Please help me find more information.

And please watch this terrible film — or, at least, the last couple minutes. Then, go watch The Night House, a much better film.