Writer-director Davis told Vanity Fair that the dilapidated farm is symbolic of Hen and Junior’s fraught relationship. “Their marriage is decaying with the house in many ways – the house for me is almost like a house of ghosts,” Davis said. “It’s been a patriarchal, generational, rural symbol, with the multiple generations moving through there. The environment was constantly reinforcing the themes of what Henrietta was fighting against, wanting to push up against, and escape from.

“What I find really powerful about the movie is it asks us to be awake and to be alive. A lot of the problems we face in relationships and with the environment and with all sorts of things coming our way is that we’re asleep at the wheel. This movie is really saying, ‘Wake up. Your life is precious, and if you take it for granted, you’re going to lose it.’”

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