‘Rose Plays Julie’ Review: An Eerie Thriller With Mirrored Traumas

As far as #MeToo thrillers go, “Rose Plays Julie” stands out for its unpredictability.

A quiet veterinary student in Dublin, Rose (Ann Skelly), has recently discovered that she was adopted and that her original name was Julie. She goes to London to find her birth mother, Ellen (Orla Brady), a television actress who wants no reminders of the circumstances surrounding Julie’s birth and no connection with her daughter. Ellen’s baby was born of rape, and she had asked that there be no further contact with Julie after the adoption.

“Rose Plays Julie,” written and directed by Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor, frames its sexual trauma as an intergenerational one. It contemplates the double lives of women through the ideas of outer success and inner anguish, as well as the trope of the naïve girl versus the seductive avenger.

Just as Ellen plays a character for her day job, Rose “plays” Julie — costumed with a bobbed wig — when she eventually tracks down her biological father, Peter (Aidan Gillen), a famed archaeologist who repeats his pattern of sexual abuse with Rose. Her disguise is not necessary, since Peter does not know her name or that she even exists. The “Julie” identity provides both a shield against her mother’s trauma and a vessel to contain it. Her actions present a thought-provoking interplay of pain and self-preservation.

But this device can sometimes work against the story, too. Amid the lush greenery of the setting, the atmosphere is perpetually bone-chilling — complete with an ominously high-pitched score — making the film seem distant and difficult to fully embrace. Even with its unusual approach to exacting delayed revenge, “Rose Plays Julie” remains just a little too cold and calculating.

Rose Plays Julie
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. On virtual cinemas and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Vudu and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.