Toronto Hidden Gem: Clement Virgo’s ‘Steal Away’ Explores Power, Identity and Ghosts of the Past

Clement Virgo’s erotic, eerie thriller Steal Away tells the story of two young women — one Black, one white — who form a bond while trying to unravel the secret history of a stately manor house. Virgo, after films like Rude (1995) and Brother (2022), returns to the familiar terrain of examining the impact of racism and inequality.

In an echo of The Book of Negroes, Virgo’s 2015 historical TV miniseries, which dealt with the transatlantic slave trade, Steal Away centers on Cécile, a young woman played by Mallori Johnson, who arrives as a young African refugee to the privileged home of Fanny (Angourie Rice), a young and sheltered woman whose world barely extends beyond life with her beautiful and benevolent mother, Florence, played by Lauren Lee Smith.

Virgo has Steal Away begin as a feminist drama that eventually breaks conventions by morphing into something of a horror film, with even a pinch of the supernatural.