Julia Garner’s ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ Prequel Entertains

Natalie Erika James‘ “Apartment 7A” is at once a prequel to “Rosemary’s Baby” — the book by Ira Levin and the film by Roman Polanski — and the latest entry in Hollywood’s new wave of pregnancy horror, born in the wake of Roe v. Wade’s 2022 repealing. Other examples from this year include “Immaculate” and “The First Omen” (the latter also being a prequel), but James’ mostly-solid film more succinctly captures the anxieties of the current moment.

The movie is largely entertaining, despite being pulled constantly in two directions: as a predecessor to an iconic work and as a distinct beast, with its own gripes against patriarchal norms. Set in the mid-1960s, it follows struggling stage actor Terry Gionoffrio (Julia Garner), a minor role previously played by Angela Dorian in Polanski’s film, and it details how she came to live in Bramford, the wealthy New York apartment building where “Rosemary’s Baby” is set. It also functions as something of a remake, following many of the same beats as the original, albeit with one major difference.

The 1968 movie saw Rosemary Woodhouse (Mia Farrow) — who was already trying to conceive — become pregnant with Satan’s spawn, while her actor husband Guy (John Cassavetes) received professional success in return. However, this new, fleshed-out version of Terry combines their stories, framing her as an up-and-comer whose pregnancy puts her Broadway spotlight at risk, but someone tempted with the promises of fame and fortune — a literal deal with the Devil — should she carry her child to term.

It’s a lucid tale of a woman forced into motherhood at the expense of her profession, though before it unfurls, the movie traces her story through a debilitating injury that derails her career, which leads her to take pills to numb the pain. This addiction subplot doesn’t last, but only because she’s soon taken in — as she was in the original — by the seemingly kindly Bramford residents Roman and Minnie Castevet, played here by Kevin McNally and Diane Wiest. Other characters seen and referenced in “Rosemary’s Baby” show up too, but “Apartment 7A” isn’t concerned with setting up a future tale so much as it is with telling its own about overbearing parent figures trying to determine Terry’s future without giving her a say.

That said, the film, like Terry, is also destined for pre-ordained tragedy, given the movie’s prequel status. This leaves it occasionally trapped between highly original flourishes — like visions of a bedazzled Satan, representing the allure of stardom — and re-treads of existing imagery, like blurry nightmares and visions that combine the real and the imagined. James, however, works quite well within these confines. “Apartment 7A” never induces the kind of paranoia that Polanski did about what’s truly going on, but the audience this time around enters with a set of expectations that would render such questions moot. Instead, the fears that grip Terry are far more overt, and they offer Garner the chance to playfully expand on a bit part in intriguing ways, as a woman beaten down by forces beyond her control.

However, the movie’s secret weapon is Wiest, whose approach to Minnie involves a major departure from actor Ruth Gordon. While McNally plays Roman with the same straightforward, personable demeanor as the original’s Sidney Blackmer, Wiest swings for the fences with a cartoonish shrillness that’s initially grating but is also befitting of a nosey neighbor. However, when she reveals more sinister layers to Minnie, her decisions yield a wonderfully loopy tonal disconnect that’s simultaneously at odds with the other actors (and the film at large) as well as deeply unsettling.

Sadly, little else in “Apartment 7A” matches the visceral impact Wiest provides. Terry’s injuries seem, at first, like they might set up exactly such a throughline, thanks to James’ unsettling closeups of blisters and scars. But this effect is soon discarded and doesn’t even return when the movie centers Terry’s pregnancy. That she’s usually in physical anguish is something Garner plays well, but it’s also something the camera captures from afar. The film breaks into formal subjectivity during dreams and visions, but seldom does this during Terry’s waking moments.

The aesthetic approach to the Bramford is also self-defeating. Along with the film’s very title — “Apartment 7A,” the Castevets’ address — the gaslight wash applied to the building’s hallways seems to color it as some inherently evil space, like the hotel from “The Shining,” even though little in the actual films supports this, including its performances. It’s all but a filter haphazardly applied, working counter to the supposedly welcoming environment the Castevets try to create for Terry before subverting it. This leaves no potential for stylistic metamorphosis as the movie progresses and thus little room for visual surprise. Still, as a modern take on a nearly 60-year-old story, “Apartment 7A” is not altogether unnecessary and makes for a decently engaging time.