When Andy insists on staying with his sister, the social worker takes them to their new home, where the charmingly frazzled Laura (Sally Hawkins) welcomes Piper with a warm embrace. Hawkins, the star of such indie comforts as Happy-Go-Lucky and genre films like Paddington and The Shape of Water immediately sets us — and Piper and Andy — at ease. She’s just a little scatter-brained, eccentric, or even whimsical, just like the many characters she’s played before. One of them is Sally Hawkins, who weaponizes her specific brand of whimsy to upend our expectations of her sinister foster mother. While Bring Her Back gets caught up in body horror and Sally Hawkins engaging in child endangerment, Andy and Piper end up suffering for it.