THE KEEPING ROOM is a unique film that balances the tension of a well-built thriller with the a wonderful, character-driven story of friendship and family. Written by Julia Hart and directed by Daniel Barber, the film opens in the rural South, near the end of the Civil War. Augusta (Brit Marling), her sister Louise, (Hailee Steinfeld) and their slave, Mad (Muna Otaru) are trying to keep their farm going and survive the best they can, waiting to hear word from their father, who is away with the Confederate Army. Food is scarce, and life is difficult. The women have been thrust into a world they don’t recognize, and are adapting to it the best they can.
When Louise becomes ill, Augusta seeks assistance and medicine from a local tavern. The business houses a tense atmosphere, populated only by the proprietors and a couple of hard-drinking Yankee deserters (Sam Worthington and Kyle Soller) who eye her up and down the moment she sets foot in the saloon. She makes it out, barely escaping an assault, but the two follow her back to the farmhouse, where the three women must make a stand to protect themselves from the dangers that have invaded their sanctuary.
At the heart of the story is the relationship between these three women, and their fight for survival under threat of attack. With no one else to turn to, they must rely on each other, melting the social and racial boundaries that they have known and banding together. They have to rise to new difficulties and challenges in this unfamiliar world. Given their roles in the pre-War South, they are generally ill-equipped to handle the harsh realities they now face on a daily basis, let alone the impending threat of violence presented in this story. In the absence of the life they have known, they have to hunt, farm and work with limited resources to keep going. In a male-dominated society, they have had to step up in an almost unfathomable way and assume roles that have never been a part of their reality until now, including a new level of self-defense and preservation.
Early in the film, Augusta talks about how all the men have gone, and the women have to become the men at home. Well in the events of this story, that means violence. That means getting your hands dirty. That means doing anything necessary to stay alive. And over the course of the film, the women are drawn further and further into this new world, and are faced with embracing it in the name of survival.
It’s a fascinating story in that it takes a setting not unfamiliar to historical fiction – there have been countless tales of hardship and heroism during the period of the Civil War – and gives it a story not often seen. Most films set their scenes on the battlefield and populate them with male protagonists. We never hear about what was happening to the women left at home as the North and the South clashed and the challenges they faced. Aside from Scarlet O’Hara, we don’t really have an idea of what could be happening at home and what women might have been dealing with during this time. It's this examination that greatly enriches Hart’s story, particularly as it does so from a feminist perspective that sees these characters rising to meet these challenges and threats.
Despite being a period piece, the film has a very contemporary feel, as it straddles the line between two different eras. It balances the transition from past to present and a more contemporary thought process and dynamic. The story takes us from a period where women must be protected and ignored, where social strata reigns supreme, to a period where they must learn to stand on their own and take charge of their own destinies, relying only on themselves.
Marling, in particular, bridges the gap between the old world and the new beautifully. Augusta has a strength and a determination to see her family through, but is struggling to embrace and understand the world around here just as the others are. She is willing to do what she needs to in order to survive, but she doesn't yet have the knowledge or the skills. THE KEEPING ROOM shows her struggle to come into her own in this new and strange place, and to embrace what is to come.
