Reawakening (2026) – Review by Andrea Carnevali

Juliet Stevenson and Jared Harris in Reawakening

Reawakening ⭐️⭐️⭐️½

The kind of film that leaves a mark. It doesn’t hand you a neat solution; it gives you something harder to shake: an emotional question you carry out of the cinema

I had the fortune of watching a special screening of Virginia Gilbert’s Reawakening, and I’m genuinely grateful I saw it on the big screen, properly, without interruptions, without distractions, and without other screens nearby. It’s the kind of film where the smallest ‘mental break’ would probably bleed some of its power away.

Sold as a thriller (more as a marketing ploy than anything, as the director herself confessed during the Q&A after the film), it soon turns out to be more of a psychological drama. A character piece, first and foremost.

The plot centres on a married couple in their tenth anniversary since the disappearance of their only daughter. At first, you’re drawn into their carefully maintained lives, everything ordinary on the surface, but with that permanent grief pulsing underneath. Little by little, clues and details about what might have pushed the girl to run away are revealed, like the parents are trying to solve the past in real time. And then, out of the blue, somebody shows up at their doorstep claiming to be the daughter.

But is it really her?

We’ve all seen variations of this story, both in films and (worse) in real life. There was even the 2012 documentary The Imposter, which dealt with exactly that kind of nightmare premise, told by the man at the centre of it (the imposter, from the title. A great documentary by the way!)

And it’s interesting that Reawakening takes a slightly different route. Instead of obsessing over forensic certainty (whether the woman is ‘actually’ the daughter or not), the film is more interested in what the parents do with that uncertainty.

It’s about reactions. It’s about need, hope, and the terrifying possibility that the ‘truth’ might be less important than what we can live with.

What really struck me is how beautifully and sensitively the film is written. It avoids the usual genre sensationalisms and the cheap tricks that tell you when to tense up, when to gasp, and when to judge.

Instead, it builds an atmosphere of emotional plausibility. And it’s anchored by three very powerful performances, especially the ‘grieving’ parents, Juliet Stevenson and Jared Harris.

They capture the gut-wrenching pain of losing a daughter, and the even worse ache of not knowing if she’s alive. Their reactions always feel believable, even when the plot steps into territory that’s hard to process rationally.

You never feel manipulated, but rather trapped with them inside their own version of reality.

Yes, it’s a slow film. And yes, it lingers. It doesn’t rush to answers, and it doesn’t chase closure just to let you exhale.

The director seemed keen to avoid forcing her point of view on the audience, letting you interpret rather than instructing you. That’s noble. It’s thoughtful. It’s also, at times, a trade-off.

Because in the end, by choosing to let emotion drive the narrative rather than the mystery, the film sometimes slips into something that feels a bit monotone: heavy in mood, lighter in escalation.

With very few moments of ‘lift’, I found myself wondering what it would have been like if it had committed a bit harder to the thriller side and allowed those character-study pieces to emerge from that pressure instead of existing beside it.

Still: Reawakening is the kind of film that leaves a mark. It doesn’t hand you a neat solution; it gives you something harder to shake: an emotional question you carry out of the cinema. That’s certainly not failure.

The film is available on Amazon Prime and can be rented or bought on the other streaming platforms too.

Andrea Carnevali is a Bafta winning film maker who lives in Chiswick, and a co-creator of the Chiswick In Film festival.

Read more film reviews on The Chiswick Calendar