The Keeping Hours is a 2018 Blumhouse Productions film.
A divorced couple (Carrie Coon and Lee Pace) is reunited ten years later when the ghost of their dead five-year-old son appears in their old house.
Tropes in this film include:
- Ambiguously Christian: Elizabeth makes a snarky comment that Mark apparently believes in ghosts now despite not believing in God. Later, the two say a prayer at the "funeral" of a dead bird, presumably for Jacob's sake. Elizabeth also comes to believe that Jacob is an angel.
- Arc Words:
- "I pressed the button." Jacob took off his seatbelt before the crash.
- "Don't be afraid." Jacob saying that his mom shouldn't be scared... and then telling her not to be scared that she's going to die too.
- Bait-and-Switch: Despite having every reason to turn into a horror film about Coming Back Wrong and Being Careful of What You Wish For, it surprisingly doesn't.
- Nothing of consequence ever comes out of Mark and Elizabeth dropping their current lives. Mark goes jobless (but he had a good paying job, so he's well enough to be jobless for a while) and Elizabeth's boyfriend Smith angrily breaking up with her (but it doesn't matter because she's ultimately still happy being with Mark and she doesn't have that much time anyways).
- When Mark and Elizabeth get into an argument about who's fault it was for getting Jacob killed, the windows explode and Jacob asks them not to fight anymore and to be like they were before the crash, ominously asking them to hold hands, which a startled Mark and Elizabeth comply to. Jacob doesn't have another outburst like this again and is not a ghost with temper issues.
- A bird crashes into the window headfirst and dies, which Jacob witnesses. It's an obvious parallel to how he died, and he even asks his parents if it died quickly. Mark and Elizabeth are freaked out by it, but nothing scary comes out of it.
- After Jacob expresses sadness at not being able to join Mark and Dash playing outside, he runs upstairs into his room and starts talking to someone about how he doesn't wanna leave yet. When Elizabeth follows him, she screams in horror when she sees a woman (that we don't see) and faints with a bloody nose. When Mark asks Jacob who it was, he doesn't answer and points to where she was. Some sort of demon? God? Some other supernatural being that Jacob answers to? It was Elizabeth's late mother, who can only be seen by Elizabeth and Jacob. It also makes you think that Jacob doesn't want to be replaced.
- When Elizabeth has another episode and says that she sees her mother but Mark can't, you think that maybe the house is haunted or there's a lot more going on. Elizabeth saw her mother for a similar reason why Jacob is back; they're there to tell her that she doesn't have much time left.
- Bittersweet Ending: It turns out Elizabeth has terminal cancer and she dies, but she passes on now knowing that the accident wasn't her fault, has made amends with Mark and Jacob, and that she'll be Together in Death with Jacob (and her mom). Mark mourns their passings, but is able to move on with his life and continues to befriend Dash.
- Cassandra Truth: Elizabeth initially doesn't want to return to the house with Mark since he's digging up an old wound, she blames him for the accident, and she's busy. When she does and sees Jacob back for the first time, she books it and punches Mark for somehow messing with her. Mark is able to persuade her to come back a second time.
- Children Are Innocent: Jacob.
- Jacob doesn't understand why his parents aren't together anymore and why it would be difficult for them to be around each other again, but his presence ultimately brings them together than more than just the physical sense again.
- He didn't understand how seatbelts worked and why they were important, which led to his accidental death.
- Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Not wanting to go into the topic of divorce to his son, Mark explains to Jacob that Elizabeth can't come to the house right now because "she's on a trip". When he does try to get her to come, she freaks out and flees after seeing him, in denial that her dead son is back. Mark then explains to Jacob that it'll just be them for a while, but Jacob knows that she's just afraid and says that she shouldn't.
- Family Man: With Elizabeth and Jacob returning to his life, Mark quits his busy job to spend more time with them. While quitting his source of income isn't the best decision (although he presumably has enough to live off of for a while), his then-current job and working style isn't suited for a family man.
- Get Out!: Elizabeth tells Janine this when she tells her that she has to let go of Jacob.
- Grief-Induced Split: Mark and Elizabeth divorce, guilt-riddenly blaming each other for their son Jacob's death in a car accident.
- It's All My Fault: On the surface, Mark and Elizabeth blame each other for the car accident, but it's an obvious thin veil for their guilt over their contribution to the accident (Mark swerving to avoid hitting a dog while it was rainy, Elizabeth second-guessing if she secured Jacob's seatbelt). It was neither of their faults; Jacob took off his seatbelt.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After the sex scene between Mark and Elizabeth, Elizabeth's boyfriend Smith shows up at their house the next day and chews her out for apparently leaving him to go back to her supposedly terrible ex-husband, then breaks up with her.
- Meaningful Name: Biblical names.
- The Gospel of Mark is the part of the Bible that chronicles Jesus's life from when he was baptized by John the Baptist to when it was discovered that his tomb was empty.
- Elizabeth was sterile, but by the miracle of God, she gave birth to John the Baptist.
- Jacob's Ladder is the ladder to Heaven.
- Morality Pet: Jacob to his parents. Mark quits drinking and Mark & Elizabeth even get back together, although it also causes them to consider doing not-so-good things...
- Shout-Out: When we first meet Janine, she asks Mark if Peggy and Steve still live there.
