‘Went Up the Hill’ Review – Samuel Van Grinsven’s Meditation On Grief Mishandles Its Moodiness

About 40 minutes into Max Barbakow’s clever Groundhog Day-esque comedy, Palm Springs, Nyles (Andy Samberg) shares some of his war stories with his newly-stuck-in-time companion Sarah (Cristin Milioti). Primarily, those war stories are about sex, as in, who Nyles has managed to hook up with at Sarah’s sister’s wedding since he walked into a time loop-stricken cave and was forced to relive the same day over and over again. Jokingly, Nyles mentions that he enjoyed a sexual rendezvous with her father (Peter Gallagher), and Barbakow cuts to a fake flashback that sees our main character and Mr. Wilder pressing their foreheads together, wondering about the choices they’re making. “What are we doing?” Howard asks. “I don’t know,” Nyles replies, and though the scene doesn’t seem to be present in the film’s cut on Hulu, this critic swears that Nyles concluded his breathy response with a message along the lines of: “It’s so wrong, but it feels so right.”

Much of Samuel Van Grinsven’s Went Up the Hill plays alarmingly close to this scene – at least, if it was ever close to how the Mandela Effect has rendered it in my mind. Strip away the commitment and comedy of Samberg and Gallagher’s presence, and you have the moody, repetitive nature of the Australian auteur’s sophomore effort, a film that desperately wishes it had anything profound to say about grief but never amounts to anything more than a series of exchanged moans, whispers, and tears from actors who are far too gifted to be saddled with the rote premise Van Grinsven and co-writer Jory Anast have devised here. Starring Dacre Montgomery and Vicky Krieps as Jack and Jill, respectively, Went Up the Hill – named in concert with the names of its two main characters, who spend a lot more time tumbling down this film’s allegorical hill than their nursery rhyme namesakes ever did – is partially a ghost story and partially the tale of two grieving souls who can’t outrun the lingering presence of their lost loved one, yet it’s much closer to a lousy version of 2021’s The Night House than it is to a profound, melancholic triumph like Personal Shopper or A Ghost Story. The ghost stories depicted in those three films are similarly about regret, but watching them is hardly regretful.

Primarily set in a massive home that feels like its architects took minimalism a bit too literally, Went Up the Hill begins as a dour affair and never quite lets go of that tone. We enter upon funeral proceedings, those that we come to learn are for Jack’s estranged mother, Elizabeth, who was also Jill’s wife. Jill invited Jack up the hill to their estate, not so much for a pail of water but for closure, a sensation the latter wasn’t even quite sure he needed. His aunt Helen (Sarah Peirse) isn’t all that pleased to see him, but acquiesces to his presence after learning who sent the invitation. There’s just one problem: Jill doesn’t recall the conversation in which she summoned him. (Okay, so there’s actually a second problem: She also wasn’t even aware he existed.)

Alas, because this is a film that needs somewhere more mysterious to go from that initial encounter, Jill invites Jack to stay in the home with her. She’s lonely and feels broken in the aftermath of her (or, their) tragedy, and could use some company, especially from someone dealing with their own form of misery. But over the course of their first few nights as roommates, a strange pall begins to cloud the dwelling, even darker than the one left in the wake of Elizabeth’s death. That it is Elizabeth herself – in phantom form, that is – complicates matters even further, as her spectral capabilities allow her to regularly take hold of her loved one’s bodies, often during the night. As you can imagine, this allows Van Grinsven and cinematographer Tyson Perkins to showcase their visual ideas, placing a distinct emphasis on metaphor that would feel far more significant and assured if they weren’t so consistently shrouded in their film’s desire to be more moody than it is philosophical. One more mirrored shot of Jack and Jill distanced from one another by an object – which occasionally ends up being an actual mirror – and you’d be convinced that the entire picture was shot in two separate locations in an effort to literally embrace its thematic imagery. 

If not for the commitment of its stars, Went Up the Hill would feel like a thought exercise gone wrong, a desperate attempt to mine depressive symbolism out of every frame. Montgomery, while likely (and unfortunately) best known for his role on Netflix’s Stranger Things, was a delightfully romantic co-lead in 2020’s underseen The Broken Hearts Gallery, and commits strongly to what couldn’t possibly be more of an inverse turn here, inhabiting Jack with a sad boy-adjacent aura that becomes especially complex when he’s occupied by Elizabeth’s presence. The same goes for Krieps, a more accomplished performer whose best roles have come in films like Phantom Thread, Bergman Island, Corsage, and Hold Me Tight, just to name a few, and her chameleonic tendencies as an actor fare well with Went Up the Hill’s assignment. She manages to separate her performance as Jill and her performance as Elizabeth seamlessly, perhaps just slightly more effectively than Montgomery, though both succeed in rising above the challenging, repetitive task.

That’s the ultimate rub here. Van Grinsven’s film has one drum it’s willing to bang, the idea that the communion of those experiencing loss is an often-strange, even supernatural experience. While it’s sound in theory, the execution is a personified tumble. Much of what it offers presents itself as worth chewing on, but what will be unearthed is more hollow and fittingly ghostlike than anything within the film itself. It’s as though Went Up the Hill is continuously incapable of tripping over itself as it wades through the darkness. Its endless search for answers is a compelling one, but it would have been better off flailing around for the feel of a light switch instead. 

Went Up the Hill will debut exclusively in theaters on August 15, 2025, courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment.