One of the most diabolical things about this psychological thriller is just how open to interpretation it is. A putatively "normal" reading of Joshua would hold that it is the story of a family torn asunder by the evil schemes of a nine-year-old son, whose jealousy over his parents' attention to their newborn daughter drives him into an eerily deliberative psychosis. But one need not skew oneself too far into the realms of the perverse to see Joshua as the story of a remarkably talented and inventive child who must remove the oppressive yoke of his immediate family — a bunch of well-heeled, trivial mediocrities — in order to realize his full potential.
Throughout much of this second fiction feature by George Ratliff (best known for his 2001 documentary Hell House), I found myself taking the second reading, and I had myself a heckuva time. Really, the creepy title character, beautifully played by Jacob Kogan, had me at the school talent-show scene. Preceded by a montage of various classmates sawing at violins and making fart noises with trumpets, Joshua placidly sits at the piano bench and begins "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." Which is odd, because prior to this we've seen him handle Beethoven at the keyboard without breaking a sweat. Once into "Twinkle," he starts festooning it with elaborately wrong notes, and soon he's doing a whole Charles Ives number on the thing. Genius, really. Then he faints. He's faking it, I think.
As Joshua makes his parents suffer, only a dolt might believe they don't have it coming, at least just a little bit. Mom Abby is a know-it-all neurotic who clearly feels a failure as a mom and is taking the opportunity of newborn daughter Lily to try and prove otherwise. She's played by Farmiga, and regular readers of the New York Times Magazine who were treated to Lynn Hirschberg's fatuous profile of the actress last year (which, among other things, tried to boost Farmiga by trashing her then preteen castmate Kogan, provoking, if memory serves, not a peep of protest from the actress) may well dislike her character even more on that account. Rockwell's Brad is a failing master of the financial universe so inept he can barely pull off a flirtation with a coworker. They make a big deal out of the idea of being great parents but it's all show, and they can't even recognize that. "I hate these people," Abby says to Brad of the other parents they meet at the aforementioned talent show. "Are we them?" No, actually, they're worse.
Still, for all that, perhaps Joshua's methods in setting his house right, which eventually entail something resembling homicide, are a little extreme. Perhaps some more direct verbal communication might have been in order. But then this picture, which engrosses all the way through as it slyly nods to other devil-children films such as the classic Rosemary's Baby and the trashy The Omen, wouldn't be quite so thrilling.
READ MORE: Mommy's Little Monster
VIEW PHOTOS: Joshua stills
