You Were Never Really Here (2017) CINEMA
Tagline: “This
life is the only one you've got.” This film is an hour and a half of that one life.
Premise: Taken
for social realists, basically.
Delivery: You Were Never Really Here (YWNRH) has the 80's-esque score and broody,
silent lead man reminiscent of Drive. Only in Drive Ryan Gosling is a
dreamy psychopath with aquamarine eyes you could swim in, not a
scruffy PTSD sufferer in a hoodie. Having said that, despite not
making me reconsider my sexuality (and seriously questioning my
choice in men were I to switch teams), Joaquin Phoenix's Joe loves
his mother and is genuinely terrifying in a much different way to The
Gosling.
YWNRH
feels throughout as if there is some timeline deception going on, or
some slight of hand that you, the viewer, who the film is
(presumably) made for, can't see. Even when things are happening, it
doesn't really feel like things are happening. But it does have that
feeling that everything is going to quite brutally kick off at any
minute... Right up until the end. When the credits rolled I honestly
thought it might have been a joke. Tense, subtle and understated are
rightly applied, but fucking hell, are you not entertained?
Not
entertained, no. Though there are positives if you rummage enough in
YWNRH. It's easy to forget quite how good an actor Joaquin Phoenix
is, mainly because he went AWOL for a period. They say a film is only
as good as the baddie, well think how fucking creepy and contemptible
his Commodus was in Gladiator. He then went on to trick the world
into thinking he'd lost his mind. Or covered having lost his mind by
tricking the world into thinking it was all a stunt, whichever is
true, fair play brah.
Style
is pretty much all YWNRH has for itself, it lolls between the
ethereal and stark reality. Always, it seems, from the perspective of
Joe. Do you like hallways and alleys, for example? Because this is a
thesis in them. Lots of shots of Joe walking up alleys and hallways,
or down alleys and hallways, sometimes he just has a little sit in
alleys and hallways. You don't like hallways? Well what if I told you
that YWNRH is filmed forwards, backwards, upside down and in reverse,
presumably to try and convince you there's more substance to it. Not
doing it for you? Me either.
Bedsit
it? I honestly wouldn't really recommend even seeing this at
home. It is wanky pretentious titillation. Without looking I'll guess
the Guardian gave it four or five out of five*, and if you want to
take the word of a long established newspaper over my rambles, then
on your head be it. Has its moments but never really appears. 5/10
Comments
Post a Comment