Sundance 2022: You Won’t Be Alone Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Sundance Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

You Won’t Be Alone opens with a bargain for a life. A village steeped in folklore and fear becomes occupied by a witch with whom a mother’s baby is agreed to be spared until a later age. In order to thwart this deal, the mother chooses to hide Nevena (Sara Klimoska) for the remainder of her life only to be outsmarted by the witch who transforms her into a similar image. As their relationship continues, the witch shows her the world that was hidden from her in an effort to form a new companionship but eventually grows tired of her ignorance and abandons her to wander the countryside alone. Her newfound abilities allow her to assume the body of anyone she claims, providing an avenue of discovery through experiencing life from various stages.

You Won’t Be Alone plays with this notion of body-swapping in an interesting way as the main character goes through life as a younger woman, a man, and even a child eventually settling into the body of a woman who falls in love. Furthermore, it makes the creative decision to show these points of view exclusively through Nevena’s internal monolog as she lost the ability to speak as a mark of payment from the witch when she was a baby. This artistic expression might not work for all as it demands its audience’s full attention, however, as a result, there is a stronger emotional investment towards the main character as audiences are given access to her deepest thoughts throughout the film. Born from this, is an unspoken kinship and connection to how Nevena’s ability to comprehend the concepts of love, loss, growth, and pain evolve over her time in others’ lives. Despite the method with which she occupies these lives, there remains a beauty of innocence and wonder through Nevena that evokes empathy and hope.

You Won’t Be Alone offers a patient unfolding of introspection that might not encounter everyone the same and through its dissonance is a common thread of the many experiences of life that all can understand culminating in an ultimate test of every emotion felt up until that moment. Its decision to primarily deliver the main character’s thoughts through an internal monolog draws the viewer in closer to the central spirit of the film and successfully delivers a sensual story grounded in intriguing folklore and fables.

*still courtesy of Sundance

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