You Were Never Really Here (StudioCanal, region B - UK disc)
Like Mandy, this is a stunning to look at and listen to interpretation of a classic exploitation movie. Ramsey and Greenwood paint every single frame with utterly ravishing images and the accompanying soundtrack is an assault of electronic ambience and industrial ear warfare. Haunting images - the lake funeral, the security camera invasion - transcend the genre roots and make this truly something special to watch...…..
And yet with saying all that, I'm going against popular opinion and saying that on the whole, I'm slightly disappointed with it.
Its not the visuals, the soundtrack or even the performances - Pheonix is immense. But I'm slightly confused by what the film is/wants to be. By their very nature, genre films tend to fixate on the more lurid, the more shocking aspects as their raison d'etre - the sex, the uber-violence, its that that sells. And therefore the narrative, plots and characters all tend to be wholly secondary in nature - skinny plots, non-existent characters, all that just gets in the way of the sex and violence.
Ramsey has said that primarily due to budget, she couldn't stage elaborate setpieces, instead opting to show the aftermath of violence rather than the acts themselves. As effective as they are, it then robs a genre piece of one of its cornerstones. Replacing it with more character work should then fill the void.....and yet for all the little flashbacks making us piece together the trauma in Pheonix's earlier life that drives him, I still never got a handle on Pheonix as a 'character'. At all.
The turning point for me was the lake funeral - here was a man, we are told, who has witnessed so much brutality towards children, both first hand and in his earlier careers, that even with all his suicidal tendencies, he is somehow driven to help find lost kids, often at huge personal expense. And yet with the plot hanging where it was, for Pheonix to ignore all that and seemingly become incredibly selfish (possibly understandable given prior events?) just showed I hadn't really understood his character at all.
I know, I know - that's the point: a horrifically tormented, conflicted individual who isn't just one thing.....but that just makes him cinematically uninteresting. For large parts of the character work here, I was, dare I say, it bored with it all. The title shows he is a nothing, he has nothing, and therefore it should be his actions that define him to us....but then we're back to the film robbing us of these actions, showing only the aftermath, half of which wasn't even due to his actions in the first place...….I just never got a handle on the whole endeavour.
Much to appreciate - its just as beautiful as Mandy albeit in a different, more traditional way. And there are some really interesting setpieces that showed what could have been. But for all the time spent on Pheonix and his character, he just never interested me or allowed me to get to grips with him. Its like he was never really there...….
A very beautiful looking and sounding genre curio, but sadly nothing more for me.
Good job with all that praise on the A/V side that the transfer is a belter. Beautifully detailed images that capture every nuance perfectly. And a soundtrack with as much surround sound steerage, impact, heft and welly as any bombastic action blockbuster, it looks and sounds like the mutts nuts. Its an embarrassment then that the only extra is titled 'From book to film' and yet lasts 62 seconds. Jesus...…
Summary - well worth a watch, but it needed more. More genre tropes, more character work, more.....anything to make it truly shine. Can't fault its look and sound though - gorgeous.