Atom Egoyan’s Seven Veils is a film about trauma, obsession, and the high-stakes world of opera production—three things that should never be left alone in a room together, let alone stretched over 100 minutes of whispery monologues and symbolic lighting. Released in 2023, this is Egoyan back in his element: emotionally repressed women, theatrical self-importance, and a narrative structure as tangled as a box of old VHS tapes. Unfortunately, “back in his element” in this case means: prepare to suffer.
The plot—again, using the term generously—follows Jeanine (Amanda Seyfried), a haunted theater director handed the reins to a new production of Salome, the infamous Strauss opera where a woman demands John the Baptist’s head because he won’t sext her back. Jeanine isn’t just here to direct. No, she’s inherited the job from her late mentor, who was both her artistic idol and, surprise, her abuser. Thus begins her descent into madness—or at least a very loud metaphor for it—while everyone around her mopes and chain-smokes under stage lights.
Amanda Seyfried deserves a medal for keeping a straight face through this. She wanders through the film like someone who took a wrong turn into a grad school thesis. Her Jeanine is repressed, fragile, constantly on the edge of either a creative breakthrough or a nervous breakdown. Which one is never clear, because the script doesn’t so much develop her as it traps her in increasingly abstract situations and says, “Act troubled.” Seyfried is trying, but it’s like trying to play tennis with a ghost and a loaf of rye bread.
Jeanine’s trauma is slowly revealed through fragmented flashbacks, awkward therapy sessions, and hallucinations that are about as subtle as a velvet hammer. We get glimpses of her mentor assaulting her, of her younger self trapped in confused silence, and of rehearsals where the line between art and memory dissolves into a lukewarm mess of soprano shrieking and psychological projection. The past is not just prologue—it’s practically a cast member.
The metaphorical meat of the film—Salome as a mirror for Jeanine’s repressed trauma—is ladled on like gravy at a funeral. Each rehearsal becomes a therapy session, each costume change a symbol, each aria a scream into the void. There’s a scene where Jeanine directs the infamous “Dance of the Seven Veils,” and it’s played like a spiritual exorcism crossed with a perfume commercial directed by Lars von Trier. The veils, you see, are not just props—they are layers of identity, shame, memory, and performance. Get it? Don’t worry, Egoyan will remind you. Repeatedly.
Supporting characters float in and out like confused stagehands. There’s a diva soprano who shrieks and flirts in equal measure, a brooding tenor who might be sleeping with everyone, and a therapist who nods solemnly like she’s been paid by the pause. No one feels real. They’re all archetypes dragged from Egoyan’s Emotional Repression Starter Kit™—a collection that includes items like “Haunted Male Figure,” “Subtly Controlling Older Woman,” and “Suffering Brunette With Symbolic Haircut.”
The visuals are pure Egoyan: glass, reflections, slow zooms, and lighting that says “opera house” but feels like “funeral parlor for dead relationships.” The film takes place mostly in dim corridors, under spotlights, or in rehearsal halls that look like IKEA showrooms possessed by sadness. The camera lingers on faces, hands, veils, mirrors—anything that can scream “metaphor!” without making an actual sound.
The nonlinear structure, of course, returns with a vengeance. Time folds in on itself like a depressed origami swan. We flip between past and present with no warning, meaning, or narrative payoff. You’ll find yourself squinting at the screen wondering, “Is this a memory? A fantasy? A scene from the opera? Did I fall asleep and wake up inside a music conservatory’s group therapy circle?”
The soundtrack is wall-to-wall opera, which makes sense, but after 90 minutes of wailing sopranos and doom-laden violins, your ears will be begging for mercy. There’s no relief, no change of tone—just a relentless wash of high notes and low hopes. It’s not musical drama. It’s sonic punishment. You’ll leave the theater with the urge to whisper for a week and flinch whenever someone raises their voice.
Now, to be fair, Egoyan is still technically competent. He frames a scene like a man who’s studied every Ingmar Bergman film twice, cried during both viewings, and then wrote a thesis about it while lying on a cold hardwood floor. But technical competence doesn’t equal storytelling. Seven Veils is less a film and more a series of emotional tableaus arranged by a director who’s forgotten that audiences are human beings, not doctoral candidates.
And that’s the core problem here. Seven Veils mistakes abstraction for depth, silence for sophistication, and trauma for art. It’s the kind of movie that’s more concerned with how pain looks under stage lights than how it actually feels. Jeanine isn’t a character so much as an echo. The film doesn’t explore trauma—it curates it, like a museum piece behind glass. It’s emotionally sterile, like watching someone cry behind a fogged-up window while a mezzo-soprano hits a B-flat in the background.
By the end, you’re not enlightened. You’re exhausted. The final act features more veil symbolism, more staring into mirrors, and one last operatic breakdown that’s supposed to represent catharsis but feels like watching someone throw up into a glitter-filled bucket. You’re left wondering what any of it meant—besides “trauma is complicated” and “Atom Egoyan still misses 1997.”
Final verdict? Seven Veils is a film that undresses slowly, dramatically, and with great symbolism—only to reveal there’s nothing underneath. It’s like being seduced by a philosophy major who thinks quoting Freud counts as foreplay. You’ll sit through it because you want to be polite. But deep down, you’ll be counting the veils, hoping the seventh is the last one before you can escape the theater and never look back.