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A new baby brings joy and excitement to his or her parents’ lives. But that baby also brings fears and exhaustion and sometimes tension, too. And in the indie thriller Something, as two new parents struggle to adjust to life with their baby, they find that there might be something threatening their new family.
Something follows the long days and sleepless nights of a couple of young first-time parents (Michael Gazin and Jane Rowen). Together, they’re navigating the ups and downs of parenting an infant while adjusting to the major changes in their lives. But as they attempt to find some kind of normal routine, things start to go wrong. Tensions rise as they begin to question their own parenting abilities—and one another’s. But it isn’t until they start to see a dark and mysterious figure in the baby’s monitor that they start to fear for their lives.
Any parent can understand the challenges that these new parents are facing. Parenting is a whole lot of work and not a lot of sleep—which can make you forgetful or irritable (or both). It’s constant worry and doubts and second-guessing everything you do. So it’s really no surprise when things start going wrong here. Someone leaves a window open, someone accidentally locks a door, someone sees something strange out of the corner of his eye. And it leads to bickering and accusations and distrust.
But, of course, there’s more here than just some sleepless nights and finger-pointing. And as the couple’s mishaps seem to become darker and more sinister—and a mysterious masked figure begins popping up in and around the house—the film shifts from relatable real-life drama to eerie thriller. As these parents start to fear for their safety (and the safety of their newborn) and begin to question one another, viewers will also start to wonder what’s really going on here.
Along the way, there are plenty of awkward moments and missteps that will remind audiences of the film’s low budget—but the creepy tension and suspense generally make the flaws easy to overlook. It’s a shame, then, that it all builds up to a conclusion that’s anti-climactic and disappointing.
Something definitely has a lot of things going for it—from its clever setup to its eerie suspense. But after investing in these new parents and their increasingly tense drama, the flat conclusion feels like a letdown—and it ends the film on an infuriatingly low note.
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