today I am going to recap and explain a recently released Finnish horror drama film called hatching. The film starts with a Finnish family with a mom dad and their two kids Matias and Tinja. Here mom was a vlogger, she had a YouTube channel where she used to showcase her day-to-day life. How her family is perfect, how her kids adore her and how they are living their best time.
One morning the mom gathers everyone on the sofa to shoot the intro video for her blog. suddenly they hear a thud on their window. As Tinja opens the window to check on it, an injured crow invades the house and starts flying at will. It crashes into things, breaks flower flask, wine glasses, and Shandielire. Finally, Tinja catches it by throwing a towel at it, she wanted to drop it outside so that it can fly safely but her mom stops it. Mom took the bird and twisted its neck. Tinja was scared and horrified seeing this, but her mom justifies it by saying it was for organic compost. Basically, mom wanted to punish the bird for destroying her precious items. Later we see Tinja dumping the bird's body in the dumpster. She was visibly sad. We see the bird shaking after a few seconds.
Just then Tinja heard a dog barking sound coming from her neighbor's house. When she checked a new family just moved in there, a young girl by the name of Retha was playing with her dog. Tinja and Retha quickly became friends, Tinja tried to pet the dog but for some strange reason dog just barked at her. Retha apologizes for this and invites Tinja to her house for playing. Tinja was interested, she asks her mom for permission but her mom kind of stopped it. Tinja was a gymnast, she had her big qualifying match at the school. she was committed to it like preparing for the Olympics. Her mom hints at her to concentrate on it rather than on leisure activities.
At midnight we see Tinja getting up, she was hearing a painful cawing sound coming from outside her house. She thought it might be from the crow who might be alive somehow. Hence she checks the dumpster, there the crow was missing. She further follows the sound to a nearby forest and soon finds a fatally injured crow lying on the ground. Possibly the same bird from before. To relieve it from the misery of half death she stones it to death. She then sees a single egg lying just by the body and decides to bring it home.
The next day we see Tinja working hard at her practice at school. Her landing was always off hence her coach was making her practice more. Tinja had no social life as she used to spend all of her time on school and practice. She was clearly unhappy seeing her classmates being happy. One afternoon after returning home from school Tinja sees her mom with a man in an uncomfortable position. Her mom introduces him as Tero. She calls him her special friend. Later Tinja gets a nice dress for her game. Later Tinja checked on that egg, she heard a heartbeat in it. By the next morning, that egg somehow grew in size hence Tinja hides it in her teddy bear. The next day at school Retha joins Tinja at practice since she was also a gymnast. Retha was pretty good, she lands perfectly each time. Tinja's mom was also at the practice, she sees a challenger in Retha. Hence after school, she forces Tinja to work hard until she gets it right. She wanted to Livestream the competition which would give more views to the channel. Hence she was extra strict.
Later we get to know that Tinja's mom was also an athlete. She was a figure skater, she wanted to live her dream of winning medals in sports in her daughter's life. Tinja's mom reveals to Tinja about her and Tero's relationship. She says I am in love with him, and for the first time, I am happy with him. She was having an affair with Tero for some time. Tinja's dad was cool with this. This confuses Tinja, she starts crying. Apparently, the egg has grown in size, and as Tinja's tears fall on it, it hatches. We see an ugly monstrous bird getting out. It had two big terrifying eyes, pair of strong legs, and hands with claws. Tinja was scared like hell, she hides in a closet. As that bird screeches Tinja's dad came looking for her. The bird then escaped through the window while smashing it. Tinja lies to her dad by saying it's a bird attack like last time.
The bird returns the next night, this time Tinja helps it by pulling out a shard of glass stuck in its hand. She realizes that the creature believes her to be its mother and she starts to care for it. She gives it a bath and sings a lullaby for it. At night Tinja's and the bird's sleep get disturbed due to Retha's dog barking. The bird in anger flies out and kills that dog. It brings the body to Tinja. Tinja was horrified, she vomits seeing this. But the strange thing was the bird eats all her omit. Gross. but the bird was thinking of it as its food. Tinja realizes that she has to feed this baby bird just like mother birds feed their hatchlings. One strange thing here was that Tinja saw the bird killing that dog in her mind. There was some sort of psychic connection between them.
The next day Tinja buries that dog. Matias saw this through his face mask. Later he digs it up and shows it to his parents, he was jealous as her mom's attention was only on Tinja. Tinja lies that she just buried the dog and doesn't know who killed the dog. Tinja buys bird seeds the next day, she eats them and vomits them so that the baby bird could eat them. Here the baby bird started transforming, it now had hair like Tinja. Tinja names it Ali. One night when Tinja was sleeping Matias tried to spy on her, the bird got furious and chased him. Later it went to Tinja's mom's room and spilled her saliva on her. Tinja's mom woke up after a few minutes, she was confused and frightened. She took a knife and started searching the house. She thought someone is in her house. Just then Matias hugged her from behind, he tried to explain everything but mom dismissed it as his nightmare.
The next day at the practice Retha does very well. Tinja's mom openly says if she has to qualify then she has to work extra hard to beat Retha first. This puts extra pressure on Tinja. While Tinja and her mom took the car, Retha was walking back to her house. Suddenly something started chasing her, it was Ali, it was looking like Tinja. Ali violently attacks Retha. Tinja was in a car with her mom, she gets the vision of this and had one powerful seizure. Tinja's mom claimed her down, she thought it might be due to stress. Hence to reduce her anxiety she decided on a trip to Tero's house for the weekend.
This caused the opposite effect on Tinja, she was clearly uncomfortable. Her dad was cool with this as he was open to his wife's interests. It seems he never had a good loving relationship with her, it was always a sham. Later we see Tinja and her mom at Tero's house. His house was a bit rugged and he seemed not so rich. Yet Tinja's mom was interested in him. Tero had a baby boy Helmi from his first wife, who had, unfortunately, died at childbirth. Tinja's mom was very much attached to Helmi which makes Tinja uncomfortable. To me all of this seems like Tinja's mom is hiring a new family for videos. Babies are good for views.
Ali follows Tinja to this house also and she sleeps beside her. Next morning Tinjagets the news that Retha is in a hospital. She checks on her where Retha's fist was amputated. Retha screams like hell when she sees Tinja. Tinja was in deep shock, she runs back and scolds that bird heavily. she blames herself for this and starts slapping. Ali hugs her and calms her down. The next day Tero notices Tinja practicing, he sensed her being under stress. He tried to understand and help her. When Tinja was feeding Ali. Tero suddenly enters her room and saw Ali. Ali quickly tried to close the door where Tero's hand got injured. By this time Ali was almost looking like Tinja, Tero confused Ali with Tinja and thought that she might be having psychological issues. He still tried to help her. Just then Tinja's mom took her or a photoshop and asked her to perfect her act. Tinja again failed at the landing which angered her mom. After all this Helmi woke up. Tinja saw her mom loving the baby more than herself which triggered a whole host of negative emotions in her. She was also experiencing the rage inside Ali against Helmi. Tinja was scared and afraid, she tried to warn Tero but failed.
Next, we see Tinja and her mom in Tinja's computation. Tinja's mom was live steaming this. Tinja gets a vision where Ali was moving toward Helmi's room with an ax. Seeing the imminent danger Tinja purposefully falls from the poll and breaks her fist. She was disqualified. With her falling Ali also experiences pain, she drops her ax. When Tero came to check the noise he saw Ali again. Ali screamed at him and ran from there. Tero was horrified in seeing someone try to kill his baby.
When Tinja and her mother return to Tero’s house, he refuses to let them enter, saying that he had seen Tinja about to kill his daughter. When her mother tries to convince him that she was with her all the while, Tero dismisses her too and refuses to let her stay any longer. As Tinja tries to apologize to her mother inside their car, her mom in anger and frustration bangs her head on the steering wheel while screaming very loudly. Blood soon starts to trickle down her injured nose, she expresses her disappointment in a very cruel manner. The two then drive back to their home, where the mother greets her father and brother as lovingly as in her videos, pretending as if nothing had happened.
Tinja reprimands Ali, she stops her from entering her house. Ali was almost looking like Tinja hence she goes to Tinja's mom and pretends like Tinja. Tinja's mom was busy shooting for her video, she never bothered anybody other than herself. Ali
forcefully hugs her and later backstabs her with her sharp fingernails. Tinja's mom screams in pain. Hearing this Tinja runs at her, she stops Ali and scolds her angrily. Tinja's burst of anger breaks Ali's jaw and she runs from there in pain. Tinja then explains everything to her mother, who now supports and consoles her daughter, saying that everything will be ok. Later both take out knives to hunt this creature. They narrate the story to Dad and Matias, and they too join them. Finally, they corner Ali n Tinja's room, mom wanted to stab her to death just like the first time. But the compassionate Tinja saves her coming in the way of a swinging knife, which stabs Tinja in the chest. As both daughter and mother cry in shock and fear, young Tinja falls down with blood coughing out of her mouth. This blood falls into the open mouth of Alli, whose jaw starts t heal. As the three members of the family watch with shock, the gap on the creature’s face fills up with flesh, and its eyes turn to ones like Tinja’s. It now utters the word “mother.” Mom looks up at it to see some wound marks around her mouth and lips. Suggesting that Alli’s transformation into Tinja is now complete. With this, the film ends.
This is a nice film, more like an artistic one. The film highlights the mentality of the modern generation who lives two lives. One on social media and the other in real life. Mom was pretending her life, marriage, and surrounding as best while in reality, she was rotted. She does not hesitate to kill beings who have unknowingly brought some wreckage to her life and also shouts at her own daughter when she was unable to do things as she had planned. Tinja was a sweet little who had bottled up all her emotions, it a portrayed here in the form of Ali. All the people that Alli hurts, or tries to hurt, are ones that Tinja’s inner conscience has reasons to want to harm. She is jealous and irritated with Matias, who often throws tantrums and causes inconvenience to her and her parents. She is jealous of Reetta because of her superb skills in gymnastics, and of baby Helmi because of her mother’s undue attention towards her. Tinja is unable to suppress all these feelings behind a smiling face, and they all come out through physical manifestations. Finally, when Alli’s metamorphosis into Tinja is complete at the end, it perhaps suggests that Tinja has now learned to fake and pretend feelings to show to the world, just like the adults in her family. In this way, Hatching is the verse to show the transformation of an innocent girl into a manipulating practical one. Overall this is a good horror movie. It gives you lots of jump scares.
