The Last Will and Testament of Rosalind Leigh

Synopsis

Leon, a young man, returns home after he learns of his estranged mother's death. As Leon explores the house and takes inventory, his mother, Rosalind Leigh, delivers a narration about her life in the form of a monologue to her son. It describes the crushing loneliness that she feels after he rejects both her and her faith due to negative religious experiences in his childhood. Concerned that Leon will never return to her life or regain his faith, she relies on an imagined life that eventually supplants her deeply held faith. With her faith shattered, she eventually succumbs to her loneliness and kills herself. At the same time that Rosalind delivers this narration, Leon deals with his feelings of guilt and grief, and he discovers that his mother was the anonymous benefactor that bought all of his artwork. When Leon faces his own demons in the house, he turns to his skepticism, meditation, and Anna, an unidentified person that he contacts through his cell phone. Anna, who identifies herself as a doctor, talks Leon through two stressful situations which Leon interprets as severe hallucinations. Ultimately, Leon is able to work through his issues, and he tells his broker that he wants to put all of the art back on the market. As he leaves the house, Leon seems to hear his mother call out to him, and she watches sadly from the window as he leaves.

Cast

Development

While creating the film Gudiño said that he was inspired by his Catholic upbringing and by Stanley Kubrick's tendency to shoot close to where he lived. The film was shot in Toronto and focused heavily on the idea of religion as something that drove the mother and son apart rather than brought them together.

Reception

Ian Jane of DVD Talk rated it 4/5 stars and wrote that the film is "a well-made, very deliberately paced film that does the right thing in taking its time to let its mystery unfold in a refreshingly mature and appropriately artistic manner." Rod Lott of the Oklahoma Gazette wrote that the film's deliberate pacing causes "near-unbearable dread". Mike Ferraro of Bloody Disgusting rated it 2/5 stars and stated that while it "[provided] an interesting enough premise", the film "fails to really deliver the goods" and that they did not find the last act to be particularly shocking, as the plot took too long to unfold. In contrast, Brad McHargue of Dread Central rated it 4.5/5 stars; he called the film re-watchable and "cerebral".