Putting a distinctly otherworldly, singularly strange spin on familiar social realism, Hoard follows the young Maria, raised by her doting, but compulsive, mother Cynthia (Hayley Squires, I, Daniel Blake) – an obsessive hoarder whose home has become a showcase for her ever-increasing ‘catalogue of love.’
Years later, following a devastating tragedy, the now teenage Maria (Saura Lightfoot-Leon, Masters of the Air) has settled into a new life with kindly foster Mum Michelle (Samantha Spiro, Sex Education). The reappearance of Michelle’s estranged foster child Michael (rising star Joseph Quinn, Stranger Things) proves formative for Maria, as the two form an unnervingly codependent relationship, embracing her sexuality and seeking to reconcile with her past.
This bolt from the blue for British cinema marks the excitingly transgressive, boldly gross-out arrival of writer-director Luna Carmoon on the scene. Turning social realism on its head, Hoard delivers a provocative, often queasy and arrestingly nightmarish study of grief and formative childhood’s impact on later life, while never losing sight of its affecting emotional vulnerability – grounded by the investing mother-daughter relationship at its heart.