The Queen of Black Magic movie review (2021)

The movie’s whodunit-style story is thankfully compelling enough to keep things moving along: a group of adult orphans reckon with a decades-old trauma involving their orphanage’s patriarch Mr. Bandi (Yayu A.W. Unru), and the mysterious disappearance of young Murni (Putri Ayudya) and guardian caretaker Ms. Mirah (Ruth Marini). But there’s also a variable quality to the movie’s storytelling that stops “The Queen of Black Magic” from settling into a dreadful groove.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s more to like about “The Queen of Black Magic” than there is to sniff at. Scripted by Joko Anwar (“Impetigore”) and directed by Kimo Stamboel (“Headshot”), this remake has enough painstakingly recreated period and location-specific details to make it a better-than-average throwback, especially during its table-setting opening scenes. Anwar wastes no time in introducing us to an extended (surrogate) family of characters, focusing mostly on three estranged and now grown-up orphans: Anton (Tanta Ginting), Hanif (Ario Bayu), and Jefri (Miller Khan). There are some other protagonists—the three men’s spouses and children, as well as orphanage caretakers Maman (Ade Firman Hakim) and his wife Siti (Sheila Dara Aisha)—but they’re usually of secondary importance.

Supporting characters like Maman and Hanif’s inquisitive son Haqi (Muzakki Ramdhan) push the plot along just by feeling their way around the orphanage, which forces Hanif and his friends to focus on protecting their families from supernatural threats that even they don’t fully understand (not until later on anyway). And while the four male leads don’t have much of an inner life, their spouses are defined by a sentence-fragment-worth of personality, like Lina (Salvita Decorte), who is on a diet, or Eva (Imelda Therinne), a germaphobe. These characters maybe don’t need a substantial backstory given how much emphasis is put on discovering what’s wrong at the orphanage, but it’s often frustrating to see likable cast members presented as means to an effects-driven end.

I wish there was more about Maman and Siti’s bittersweet relationship, especially when they, washing the dishes after a big group meal, exchange subtle smiles when he tells her, “I married you because nobody else would marry either of us." That line characterizes the musty air of resignation that hangs over the orphanage, which is predictably located two hours away from the nearest police station. Still, I would have loved to know more about Siti given that so much of the “The Queen of Black Magic” is inevitably the sins of various fathers and how they burden their loved ones. That’s a built-in limitation of Anwar’s faithfully reproduced story since Maman and Siti both keep watch over a location that represents a prematurely buried past that Hanif and his friends aren’t ready to exhume.

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