I don't think anyone would question Elizabeth's Shue's ability to act up a storm or, after all these years, think of her as just another pretty face. In FIRST BORN, she plays a middle-aged woman who is having her first baby. Husband Steven Mackintosh moves wife and newborn daughter out into the country for peace and safety, but then he goes right back to work in the city, leaving them alone for long periods of time. Shue begins to imagine things, or does she? Perhaps there is a ghost haunting their old country manor. At one point, it appears someone has broken into the house, but is it real? Shue later tells the cops the intruder looked a lot like herself. She owns a rather unpleasant-looking doll she suspects may be haunting her in some way, and eventually throws it in the back yard pool where hubby mistakes it for their baby and dives in fully clothed to rescue it. Shue later discovers a bunch of rodents crawling on her baby and shakes the baby to get them off. But from her husband's POV, there are no rodents and Shue is simply shaking the baby. Shue buys a book on curses, and ends up in the looney bin for a month of rest and relaxation. When she somes home, her mom (Blair Brown) is there to help with things. And hubby takes some time off to be with mom and child. And then comes a truly unsettling ending. So what is FIRST BORN? Is it a ghost movie? The director obviously doesn't want us to think so. He actually shows Shue chasing herself around the house during the "intruder" sequence. FIRST BORN may have been marketed as a supernatural thriller, but it is actually about post partum psychosis. And Shue is amazing as her character edges closer to the final stages of insanity. FIRST BORN is almost a one-person movie, like a one-person stage performance, Shue is that good. But I am afraid this movie will not be for everyone, especially younger viewers, and anyone expecting another THE OTHERS will be sorely disappointed. It is a character study of a descent into madness and its horrifying consequences. By the way, at age 44, with her hair cut short, Shue looks remarkably like the Sharon Stone of old! There is a scene near the end where Shue is lying in bed, daffily smiling up at the ceiling, and in that moment she could pass for Stone's twin.
Review of First Born
