The Deliverance review
Lee Daniels has never been a filmmaker who plays it safe. The director behind Precious, The Butler, and Empire has built a career on taking stories that make Hollywood uncomfortable and forcing them onto the screen anyway. The Deliverance is no different, and it may be his most ambitious risk yet.
The film is based on the true and extensively documented story of Latoya Ammons and her family, whose experiences with what they believed to be demonic possession in their Gary, Indiana home in 2011 were recorded and verified by medical professionals, social workers, and government officials. This is not a story that was whispered about in private. It was written up, filed, and signed off on by people whose job it is to deal in facts.
Daniels takes that story seriously. In a genre that too often treats demonic possession as pure spectacle, The Deliverance treats it with genuine respect.
The Deliverance Review: The Story
Ebony (Andra Day) is a mother trying to keep her three children safe in a home where something is very clearly wrong. The children are out of control, emotionally and physically, displaying behaviours that defy easy explanation. Ebony’s mother Alberta (Glenn Close), a reborn Christian, turns to her local church for help while Ebony struggles to hold everything together at considerable personal cost.
The dynamic between Day and Close is the engine of the film. These are two women operating from completely different frameworks, one reaching for faith, one barely keeping her head above water, and both of them right. Daniels never positions religion as naive or dismisses the horror unfolding around them. He holds both realities at once, which is what makes the film land the way it does.
About the True Story
The Latoya Ammons case remains one of the most extensively documented alleged cases of demonic possession in American history. In 2012, the family contacted the Department of Child Services after months of reported supernatural activity in their home. What followed involved not just clergy but physicians, psychologists, and DCS workers, several of whom filed official reports describing things they could not explain. The case was covered by the Indianapolis Star and drew national attention.
Ammons and her family eventually moved out of the house. The activity, they reported, stopped.
About the Filmmakers and Cast
Lee Daniels is one of the most fearless directors working in American cinema. His credits include Precious, which won two Academy Awards; The Butler, starring Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey; and the Fox series Empire. He has never made the same film twice and has never made a safe one.
Glenn Close has received eight Academy Award nominations, more than any other living actor without a win. She brings Alberta a complexity and warmth that could easily have tipped into caricature in lesser hands.
What She Said’s Anne Brodie spoke with both Close and Day about the film. Watch the interview below.
Andra Day won the Golden Globe for Best Actress for her performance in The United States vs. Billie Holiday in 2021. The Deliverance confirms that was not a fluke.
