I watched this all the way through, though I cant pretend I liked it. The overwhelming impression of this movie was confusion. I had zero idea of what the hell was going on. All the effects of a shocker movie were there, the insects,the momentary glimpses of things undetermined, to raise the tension, the creepy caretaker, the muted colouring, the mutilated corpse, flashbacks, the almost abandoned building which was an ex hospital with, handily, a morgue in the basement ! etc etc. For me a movie must have entertainment value, there was none here, the story was nasty all the way through. Acting ? Colin Firth, Mena Suvari... first class as you would expect when you manage to acquire actors of their standing you want to put them in a better vehicle than this movie.
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geomac3916 May 2007
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hamecrit974 March 2006Really great creepy cinematography, music, and staging all waiting for a plot. The story line twisted and turned and at each point of expected climax, there was nothing. I'm not sure what happened other than, he was a nut and it is more likely than not that he killed a nut. Did he make up his past and adopt Charlotte's Web? And what do spiders have to do with ant obsessions? And why did his apartment look like all the other places he went to? And why were there cameras everywhere, on the streets, in the stairwells? And maybe that cop was a figment of his imagination? Maybe the whole movie was in his imagination! We know the psychiatrist was in his head, but the watch gave that away in the beginning. But best of all, there is no hospital on the planet that would let you walk around barefooted! Maybe he is still in his coma.
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AKS-65 January 2005The first 15 minutes or so of watching this movie was a boring experience. I didn't know what was going on and I wasn't even sure if I wanted to know what was going on. However, after an half hour or so things started to get clearer. Still no clue really, but at least I felt like there was a plot somewhere.
The last half hour or so was actually pretty good. By then I had a pretty good idea about what was going on and the movie was quite suspenseful, but not in the "thriller" sense of the word. This is very much a drama about mental illness and one man's fight against it.
I have never seen Colin Firth in a role even remotely resembling this one before. I can imagine he liked the change. I think he does a good job because he makes it clear that his character is not an evil man or a "psycho". He is ill in desperate need of help.
I can't say I liked Trauma, but I certainly didn't dislike it either. When it ended I felt that I had watched an interesting movie with many pretentious elements. Hardly an enjoyable experience and it's fragmented quality is certainly not for people who don't watch a lot of films. Interesting movie, but not a very good one.
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saberlee441 June 2006There are many fine films out there where the sanity of the main character was brought into question (SECRET WINDOW, Johnny Depp, for one), leaving the audience to wonder what was real and what wasn't. All that I wondered as I watched this film is when it would end.
While Colin Firth gave a fine performance, the story was muddled and confusing. I didn't care who was dead, who was alive, or who killed whom. I watched until the end, hoping I would receive some kind of payoff, as the film would just HAVE to redeem itself by penetrating through the miasma of confusion enough to give the viewer something, but I found nothing. This was a huge disappointment in every way. -
Skint11123 June 2004Another dismal dud from the British film industry. This has all the things that make the average Brit movie so dire: downbeat story and settings, pretentious 'realistic' performances and an incoherent, showy style. Any film that starts with the death of a character that we - naturally - feel absolutely nothing for gets off on the wrong foot. After a short while we're as confused as poor old unshaven Colin Firth, who wears a puzzled frown throughout. Mena Suvari turns up now and then, but really shouldn't have bothered. Indeed, she might as well have phoned her performance in like she did in American Pie 2. Everything stinks about this film: the laughable press headlines (would The Mirror really have 'Caught You! Killer could be on film' as a header in the circumstances the film presents?), the stupid, grim settings (who lives in a barely converted hospital?) and the obscure, confusing story development that tries to be clever but just annoys. I can't imagine anyone enjoying this turkey.
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MichaelLibinAP29 April 2006I'm so sick of "filmmakers" being more concerned with art direction than a cohesive story. I wasted 2 hours trying to figure out the significance of plot points only to find...ha hathere is none! Nothing is connected. None of the carefully identified nuances mean anything. And when it's over, the viewer has no idea what they just saw without listening to the director explain what we were seeing. Now THAT'S a sign of expert film-making! Here's a novel idea...how about A.) trying a bit less to make film look like an MTVvideo, B.) actually writing an ORIGINAL story that makes sense (this is "Stay" plus "Identity*" plus "The Jacket" equals MESS), C.) aping someone like--oh, ALFRED HITCHCOCK who never had to describe what we were watching because his films made narrative sense!
*Apologies to "Identity", a really fine movie that shouldn't be mentioned in the same paragraph as this trash... -
rmwhittaker10110 September 2004Over the past few years, there has been a resurgence in cheap British horror movies. From the artsy approach of 28 Days Later to the low-budget, hi-gore of Cradle of Fear. Trauma is the latest of this dreary progression of spooky-ooky to inflict itself on screens, and one of the weakest.
Colin 'Mr Darcy' Firth leads as Ben, a grief-stricken artist recovering from car crash that put him in a coma and killed his wife. As he comes to terms with his grief, he is burdened down with clumsy student film imagery (ants, mirrors, creepy janitors, inexplicable bleeding, mysterious figures, living in an abandoned hospital). At the same time as he becomes convinced that his wife may be dead, he finds himself the prime suspect in the murder of a generic R'n'B singer whose connection to the main plot isn't explained for over an hour. It all starts to get too much for Ben, who starts hallucinating. Meanwhile, Mena Suvari has a few disconnected scenes as his new love interest, and then disappears for lengthy swathes of time. Not that it matters much - it's the plot, not Ben, that seems psychotic, flailing wildly from one unresolved trick on the audience to another.
Running 5 minutes longer in its UK cut than the 88 minute version that showed at Sundance, the extra time does it no favors. In fact, for such a tiny film, it lags, and obviously lacked a strong editorial hand over debut feature writer Richard Smith's red herring-laden script. As the follow-up to director Marc Evan's surprise indie hit My Little Eye, and featuring a leading role by Colin Firth, Trauma was bound to gain some press coverage. That may be fortunate for the investors, because if this had come out of the gate cold, it would have been ignored - and rightfully so.
The problems start with the pairing of Firth and Evans. Much as the director's last movie, large slabs are shot through surveillance cameras - however, whereas My Little Eye felt like it showed a degree of ingenuity in its use of non-conventional film stocks, at least the web-cam gimmick used there provided a logicale for their use. Here it feels like Evans falling back on a trick, one that wears the patience of the audience down rapidly. Firth, on the other hand, seems to have taken this role so that he can break away from his type-cast affable bumbler, the more macho Hugh Grant. It's neither the picture to do it in, or the role to do it with. He may as well just be wearing a t-shirt that says "I'm dead mad, me, since he falls back on a collection of tics and idiosyncracies to put over Ben's mental collapse.
Ultimately, and much like My Little Eye, it feels riddled with Evans' hubris. He obviously feels like he's making a terribly important and significant movie that owes no debts to anyone. However, much as his last movie was 'inspired' by The Blair Witch Project, it would be worth checking his Blockbuster rental history to see when he last took home Jacob's Ladder. The dissolution of the central character, rotting hospitals used as sets, the half-seen monsters, even the 'vibrating demon' trick all turn up.
However, that lack of originality may make it possibly the defining movie of the new wave of British horror. As a scene, it all seems to be so generic, falling back on the use of DV to give it some sense of grittiness. As a movement it lacks the vivacious ingenuity that defined the Amicus and Hammer movies of the 60s and 70s, Italian Gallo, or American grindhouse splatter. -
jamesraeburn200331 October 2004An unemployed loner (Firth) recovering from a road accident becomes obsessed with a murdered pop star and with the prospect that his wife, supposedly killed in the crash, might not be dead after all.
In recent months we have had two excellent British films released in our cinemas. Geoffrey Rush gave what could well be the performance of his life in "The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers" and "Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels" producer Matthew Vaughn made a fine impression with "Layer Cake", his directing debut. "Trauma" is a Warner-BBC co-production that is both confused and pretentious and it seems longer than it's running time. Director Marc Evans fails to generate any suspense and the twist in Richard Smith's screenplay when it comes is hardly worth waiting for. Some moody cinematography from John Mathieson and a good performance from Colin Firth offer a little compensation, but one can't help thinking that this should have been confined to the BBC's airwaves rather than our cinemas. -
terezia-113 February 2006Well, I watched Trauma last night and will be storing it away with the Rubik's cube. Have to wonder how the writer managed to get this to screen. Talk about a half baked plot. I enjoy a film that leaves you thinking, but come on! You could drive a herd of pigs through the holes in this story. It came in kit form, put it together yourself and hope the parts fit. Clearly they didn't for me. It started with the fairly well worn premise of a man recovering from an RTA that killed his wife. And went down hill from there. Good part for Colin Firth though. He acted his socks off. But why does he always look as if he's just seen something nasty in the barn?
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eonbluedan-111 February 2011If you think you know director Marc Evans because you saw "Snow Cake", exercise some caution before getting into "Trauma". If you saw "My Little Eye", however, you are safe, though due to be a little underwhelmed, I must say. This may be partly due to the fact that it is not written by the same person, does not have the same overwhelming grip on the audience as "My Little Eye" had, and does not have the same clarity (though it is easily argued this is intentional), but it would be unfair to say it is not a convincing piece of writing, as apparently confirmed by a professional psychiatrist, and not a film worth giving some attention.
"Trauma" is about Ben, a man who suffers a car accident with his wife Elisa, and upon emerging from his coma, discovers she is dead. His accident coincides with the death of the famous singer Lauren Parris, who we discover was connected to Elisa. Ben moves back to his apartment, is befriended by a neighbour named Charlotte, and proceeds to try to get on with his life with the aid of sessions with a psychiatrist. Unfortunately he is haunted by visions and a growing feeling that there is something wrong, that he is missing something, a huge piece of a puzzle he seems to be part of.
This is a film that suffers from various problems: a lower quality sound mix that one might expect, a rather unremarkable turn from Mena Suvari (American Beauty) as Charlotte, Naomie Harris and Brenda Fricker being given fairly little to do, and a sense that Richard Smith, the writer, was so intent on telling a strange story, he perhaps lost his way with some of the finer details. All that said, Marc Evans brings it in at 90 minutes, and manages to create a tense, exciting experience, if not a wholly satisfying one. It seems to be an issue for a lot of people that there are more questions than answers, and that the film is unnecessarily confusing. The thing is, though I do agree it is flawed and certainly not technically on the level of Evans's previous work, I don't think the direction is as unruly and ill-disciplined as these people believe.
"Trauma" is not supposed to be a story with a beginning, middle, and an end where you get all the answers; it is not a story where everything is crystal clear, which once finished you can then forget about. To me, it became clear that it was Evans' intention to tell a very subjective story, through the eyes of our protagonist. The hook of it is exactly that question of doubt about Ben, and the questions you have to ask, some of them questions that even he has himself: Is he a victim of some game, is he really missing a bigger picture, is he paranoid, is he losing his mind through grief, is he schizophrenic? Evans's use of tone, editing, and pacing, and his ability to blur the line between reality and delusion really do put you in the piece with Ben. You are not supposed to go away fully understanding it all, but rather having experienced the character's fears and possible delusion for yourself, having been dragged through the film, regularly as confused as Ben is. In this regard I would draw a comparison to David Cronenberg's "Spider", though this does play out as a thriller rather than a drama.
Whether this sounds like your sort of thing or not, there is one reason above all else to watch "Trauma", and that is Colin Firth. He said himself the film jumped out immediately; amidst the numerous proposals landing on his mat to play the next romantic lead, it is easy to see how. Firth has finally got recognition for his role in "The King's Speech" and quite rightly, but even with that he is playing "proper British", a royal, respectable and high-class. "Trauma" is your rare chance to see him showing exactly why he is a leading British actor, with a performance that goes to a shockingly dark place; it is surreal and you have to keep telling yourself it's Mr Darcy, but if anyone needs convincing that Mr Firth has range as an actor, this would most certainly be it. His performance alone makes this a worthwhile experience. -
anticaria7 December 2005there's really no way to get around it: this movie just plain sucks, and provides further proof that the brits just can't make thrillers worth a damn. the tired and silly dialogue with the shrink was so clichéd, i didn't know whether to laugh or cry. and speaking of nonsensical clichés, the plot in this movie goes around in so many gratuitous circles, i almost got dizzy. we're left having to deal with a series of real and imaginary episodes which add so little insight into the main character, that they almost appear to be frivolous afterthoughts with nothing whatsoever in common. having said that, i must admit colin firth did an admirable job with the crap he was given to work with. otherwise, this movie's one of the most pointless yawners to come out of Britain in a while. never have i been happier to see end credits roll in all my life.
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SILENCEikillyou29 July 2005Make THIS film! Seriously, this film shows how to make a truly scary film without the special effects budget of some other horror films. 1) Hire great acting talent. 2) See #1
This movie had no cheap thrills, no special effects pizazz, and no hokey acting talent with great one-liners. I've never given Colin Firth his due. He is hands down, a really great actor and he should do more films like this, where he's not the nice guy. (Maybe he has, already, but thanks to this film, I'm going to check now).
This plot didn't need anything extra to weigh it down. And it was very nicely acted out.
Mena Suvari is so adorable in this role. She really seems too good to be true. I've always liked her in any movie and this is no exception. But she seems to work well with Colin and I believe they should do another movie together.
If you're looking for ghosts or demons. Things that jump out and make you scream. Or hokey one-liners and teenagers engaging in sexual acts while be watched, stalked, and then hacked by a knife-wielding maniac. Look elsewhere... far from this film. If you want to see horrors of the psyche and a genuine mental thriller, 'Trauma' is a very great choice. -
lathe-of-heaven18 September 2007Well, first off, I ***STRONGLY*** disagree with MWhittaker's high-minded dismissive view of this film (Sorry Mate... : ) GEEZ, it's like if a film is not WILDLY original in the extreme or with 'Vivacious Ingenuity' (as stated) so many seem to be just OH so bored and jaded that they dismiss it...
Reference was made to 'JACOB'S LADDER'. Okay, so how many people have payed homage to or incorporated such a successfully disorienting mood with such a powerful psychological force even remotely similar to that great film...? Like, NOBODY... Okay, 'SESSION 9', one of my ALL TIME favorites along this line of psychological horror does a GREAT job and probably next to the more abstract nature of 'JACOB'S LADDER' is one of the very best of it's kind. Well, this one was not quite THAT good, but it didn't fall too terribly far short of it.
Being an EXTREMELY devoted fan of David Lynch I would have to say that the director of this film captured at least some of the essence of the abstract and psychologically disorienting feeling of say Lynch's 'MUHOLLAND DRIVE', but without all the delightful and idiosyncratic trappings of course : ) So, let's give the guy credit for creating a VERY visually and mentally unsettling film that does it's job well. Not a masterpiece, true..., but FAR, FAR, friggin' ***FAR*** better than all these 'Cheap British Horror' films that our dear Mr. / Ms. Whittaker is alluding to. And you think '28 DAYS LATER' is Artsy...??? I think that that is a strong indicator of your point of view and taste there; not to be disparaging in any way at all, but I personally found that film, although very good, NOT ***NEARLY*** as 'Artsy' as this film in any way, shape, or form. That was perhaps 'Technique' or 'Style' my British friend, but not really any way near the artistic approach that this director used in this film, in my lowly and wretched opinion.
Now, I have NOT seen 'MY LITTLE EYE', so perhaps in comparison this one may be disappointing, but please let's give credit for what this film is by itself. I ask, how many films can even come CLOSE to pulling off the mood, suspense, etc. that the visuals in this film do? MOST films that even bl00dy TRY usually fall flat on their little cinematic faces. [***EDIT (2014-10-27) I HAVE seen it now, and it is a frigg'n DISTURBING film! One of the first kind of Proto-Torture Porn movies, thus not really my kind of thing]
And, YES, I love AMICUS, HAMMER, GIALLO, and some Grindhouse films too... However, to me this is comparing apples to oranges my friend. Since when have you seen a HAMMER film with this level of psychological complexity...??? I think honestly what it boils down to is a matter of preference; this film simply didn't 'Do It' for you, that's all. Perhaps you tire of all the weird visuals and gimmicks as you see them such as using the video monitors. Okay, fair enough... But, to all you lovers of PSYCHOLOGICAL Horror / Thrillers out there, let me tell you, I have rarely seen a film with such a sense of unease and psychological disorientation as this one for quite a while... Now, as I mentioned before, 'SESSION 9' is one of my utmost, favorite films; but, while watching that one I had more of a sense of 'DAMN! This is friggin' awesome!' whereas with this film I had more of a sense of deeper unease because of the disorienting force of the story making me feel like 'What the HELL is gonna happen next!!???...'
So, in conclusion (if you all haven't already hanged yourselves by now... :) I would say that if you really want a good but somewhat ambiguous psychological thriller that will DEFINITELY keep you on the edge, and if you happen to like films similar to 'JACOB'S LADDER' or 'SESSION 9', then you should enjoy this film... -
I am all for the weird and different, I am all for a little science fiction or a blur of reality or even a quizzical ending...take the brilliant film The Jacket or The Machinist to name a few recent ones. Trauma starts off interestingly enough with that sort of...is this real or not type story. Unfortunately by the end of it you don't care and you still have no idea and worse yet, you're massively confused by everything. That's not a good way to end the story.
Trauma is about a man named Ben who seems to be just awakening from a coma after a car accident where "apparently" his wife was killed. Upon awakening the news of the day is the murder of pop superstar Lauren Parris, whose body was found in a canal after being missing for two days. Ben feels his grief is being overshadowed by the death of this pop star. He is devastated and torn up and lonely. As the film progresses we are gradually introduced to a myriad of facts that never once add up...his wife is alive or dead, people exist or don't, he's a killer or not...none of this is ever answered and we are never given the opportunity to figure it out.
Colin Firth (who I think is limited in his acting ability as it is) really gives this his all. He does turn in a very sad performance at first of a man grieving for his lost love. Unfortunately the script blows all that to hell by mucking everything up and making everything make little to no sense. Basically this film has no point whatsoever despite trying at the beginning. Mena Suvari is just an American name to tag onto the film because her role...whether important or not....is not important enough for any one actor. The film doesn't make sense and it's just a shame because I am sure there is something redeemable there somewhere. I'm sure some fan of the film will dissect it and come out with some sort of theory and I'm all for that but I won't be the one for sure. Skip this one, and check out The Jacket. 4/10 -
Danny_G138 November 2004Marc Evans directs this superior British made movie about a man who awakens from a coma to discover his wife is dead and he's haunted by images from the past.
Colin Firth is Ben, a traumatised coma recovery victim. He's confused about his life, and as a result of the death of his wife, possibly caused by himself during a road accident he's moved apartment only down the street near where a famous pop singer was murdered around the time of his wife's death. He has no concrete memory of the recent past, so cannot answer the questions his own mind is posing him.
Stricken by nightmares and bizarre visions, Ben is utterly flummoxed and scared by what is happening to him, and to attempt to escape it he teams up with an old art college friend as a work partner. However, add into the mix his intense grief at his loss, and the entry into his life of the lovely Charlotte, played meltingly wonderfully by Mena Suvari, and it is plain to see that he simply doesn't know who or what to turn to in order to truly get his life back on track. There is also the overriding suspicion that the murder of the singer, Lauren Paris, is in some strange way connected to what is occurring to him...
The direction in Trauma is absolutely fantastic. Psychological suspense is the name of the game here, and although it certainly takes a few nods from the likes of Vanilla Sky and Jacob's Ladder, it's unquestionably its own world. It is certainly the type of superb cinematography which disturbs in this sort of movie, hinting at innate 'wrongness' of certain things.
Firth is initially quite hard to accept as the troubled Ben, but you get used to him and in the end he actually convinces quite well. As said before, Mena Suvari is quite delicious as Charlotte, encompassing a sort of Penelope Cruz demeanour as she was in Vanilla Sky. Her warmth, enthusiasm and eagerness shines through at all times.
However, the only flaw I can find with this story is that I am *slightly* confused by what it all meant, and what the conclusion actually entailed. I am writing this review having read absolutely nothing about the movie, so for all I know, it was a terrible film which confused everyone! However, I really got a kick out of it, and although I am a mite baffled by it all, the polish and quality of everything about it shone through, for me, and I will endeavour to read more about it on this very site.
Personally, if you enjoy psychological thrillers (This *might* have been intended as a horror but it was nowhere near the level of scariness a horror should be) with a hint of the supernatural, give this a shot. -
paulbuckley00713 April 2011Very disappointing attempt recycling many old ideas throughout, never once believed this was going to surprise me and it didn't let me down. Fair acting overall but the dialogue was wooden and characters throughout were provide unconvincing roles which added little; the sisters complete change of heart, the boyfriends unconvincing attempt to warn off; the plastic policeman's dreadful attempt to interview; the main scene (an old hospital building undergoing renovation) was completely unbelievable too. I found nothing in this film convincing and the end was as flat as the whole film - a waste of time. I'm surprised Colin took this project on, but maybe as it was early in his career he can be forgiven. Looked and felt like a made-for-TV-movie and a real waste of a half decent idea. Not one scary moment in my opinion Dreadful
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pdmb22 May 2005I can't remember being so disappointed by a film. I love psychological thrillers but this was just so pretentious and up its own ar*e that I found myself not giving a toss what happens to anyone in it (except Mena Suvari, naturally).
I guess the hope is with making such a film is that the viewer will, through repeated viewings, find more and more to enjoy in the film, but frankly I would resent the loss of 90 minutes of my life having to sit through it again. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe if I did watch it again, I would find more to enjoy but directors ought to consider making their films suitably enjoyable at the initial viewing that you would *want* to watch it again. As it was I found myself justifying why I ought to watch the last half of it.
What a wasted opportunity. -
tyger26 July 2005Not a horror movie, which I wasn't really expecting, but not a spooky psychological thriller, which I think it was supposed to be. What was it? confusing. This movie tried so hard to find its place, but just wandered around & around. I found myself using the repeat button to go back and see if there was something I had missed, to make sense of what followed. There were a few good scenes, a couple good jolts -and I do like Colin Firth - but the movie just couldn't find its rhythm and stay there. There *was* some good acting, but not enough to make me care about the characters. There *was* some dark atmosphere, but it wasn't sustained. There *was* some shock value in the end, but not enough. Can I have my 88 minutes back, please?
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Coventry29 January 2006"Trauma" is a hopelessly dull and pretentious thriller by Marc Evans, director of the equally annoying new-age horror film "My Little Eye". You know the drill; this is the type of thriller that jumps from one incomprehensible sequence into another and the cast faces' remain serious and straight at all times, even though they don't understand what's going on neither! Colin Firth plays the psychologically messed up survivor of a car crash that supposedly killed his wife Elisa. Supposedly, because Been keeps on spotting her and stalks his former sister-in-law. Moreover, a famous singer has been murdered and Ben is the police's prime suspect and, on top of all this, he has a bizarre passion for crawling ants and his attractive young landlady takes him to supernatural gatherings. No wonder the guy goes out of his mind! I presumed that all these different story lines would eventually come together (and maybe they did, who knows) but the truth is that you can't possibly care about it. The screenplay of "Trauma" is stuffed with semi-elaborated ideas and pointless red herrings, and at the end of the movie you still don't know a lot, expect that you shouldn't have bothered to see this nonsense. Evans desperately uses all the old tricks to create an ominous tension and horrific atmosphere: extended close-ups of the ant farm, vague flashbacks, accelerated camera-work and depressed characters that never ever smile! There's nothing even remotely interesting or original about this film, on the contrary, the story rips off nearly a dozen other thrillers. The filming locations are uninspired (an abandoned hospital? Please...) and truly ugly to look at, too. Young actress Mena Suvari deserve a brief mentioning, though, as her acting skills have seemly improved since "American Pie" and "The Rage: Carrie 2".
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claudio_carvalho11 May 2006While recovering from a car crash and a coma, the weird artist Ben (Colin Firth) is informed that his wife Elisa (Naomie Harris) died in the accident. He tries to rebuild his life working with an old friend in the restoration of a building, changing his address with his ant farm and having sessions with his former psychologist. Meanwhile, the police is investigating the murder of the model Lauren Parris (Alison David), who worked with his wife. His gorgeous neighbor and super of the building, Charlotte (Mena Suvari), feels attracted for him, but the deranged Ben starts seeing his dead wife and is investigated by Detective Constable Jackson (Ken Cranham) as a suspect of murdering Lauren Parris.
I saw the trailer of "Trauma" and I decided to see this movie, expecting a great thriller. Unfortunately, the direction and screenplay do not work well, wasting a good idea and making a film very confused and even boring in some moments about the process of madness. The identity of Ben's shrink is absolutely predictable. The beauty of Mena Suvari is very impressive. In the end, the trailer of this flick is better and better than the movie itself. My vote is four.
Title (Brazil): "Trauma" -
When I saw who directed this movie (Marc Evans) I was immediately reminded of the way I felt after seeing his other film: "My Little Eye" ... That was a movie that had the potential of being a sleeper cult hit, but it turned out to be a pretty disappointing standard 'shocker'. But I took the risk and rented Trauma on DVD, and I have to say, if anything, Mr Evans has improved. Even though this film doesn't quite know where it's heading half the time, at least there's an atmosphere that grips you and doesn't let go until you've had all the answers.
in a nutshell : Ben wakes up from a coma, after a car crash in which he believes his wife died. He is suddenly confronted with the mysterious murder of a famous singer that his wife used to dance for. When he decides to let the past be, he moves into a new home and meets Charlotte, a young woman. When he starts developing feelings for her his life becomes stranger by the minute. Who is the man in the hooded grey parka? Why is a psychic telling him his wife hasn't passed on, and could he be the killer the police are looking for? Reality and dreams start to mix as Ben loses grip ...
Now to the experienced movie-goer, some plot developments can be sensed a mile off, but Evans makes his audience feel as lost as Ben is, and this way accomplishes to keep us guessing until the last minute. This is not a must see, because there are other (and better) films in this genre. But it's surely not a waste of nice night in.
Stephen -
Trauma (2004)
The creepy, mind-bending aura of this very British contemporary film, starring a lonely and confused man named Ben striving most of all to find reality itself, has so many really interesting aspects you can't help but wonder why it doesn't quite sweep you away. Or worse, why it's downright bad by the end, all the building up and forced drama being affectations built on sand.
And leading man Colin Firth is one of our masters of brooding, interior acting, which he does extremely well once again, against the odds set up by director Marc Evans. Firth's portrayal of Ben actually makes the most of all the ambiguity of the clichéd plot, and we try to follow his mind as it keeps slipping from one point of view to another.
It sounds great, on paper. But this is no Coen Brothers film, nor a David Lynch or David Fincher film, even if there are shades of each of these styles and intentions throughout. The sets are gloomy if sometimes too obvious--Ben decides to live in a nearly abandoned former mental hospital, for example. And the background crime which pins together the various facts, the death of a beloved and lovely celebrity, leads to the usual hardboiled detective (Brit style) and to newspaper clippings and flashbacks and glimpses on crude surveillance monitors.
If you are curious about the approach, check it out. I think the first twenty minutes gives a great idea of the whole movie. It just isn't smartly made or cleverly written, and this kind of card game with possible realities, which the viewer is made to play as much as Ben, requires smartness and cleverness, for sure.
Ben may actually be insane, may actually have murdered the person we are led to believe he did, and may actually belong in the institution he is shown, or not shown, inhabiting. Yes, it's willfully confusing. He wrestles with where he lives, where he walks. He wonders about the darks stairs leading to the gloomy underground rooms. The camera whirls or blurs, many times, almost as if they run out of motivation and need to switch to a camera effect right when maybe, through some actual writing and thinking, we could piece together some of the implied complexity (the way they do in, say, "Memento"). In the end, we are given the police investigator giving it all a knowing eye.
Besides the faltering writing, there are secondary actors who are not at their best (and whose best isn't always inspired, at that). For one, Mena Suvari, who I know from "American Beauty" in a kind of odd role where her blankness works well, is just far to lifeless and wooden to make her mysterious presence across the hall either scary or provocative. And so, heads up on this one. It's not what it seems, or could have been. -
gradyharp22 June 2005TRAUMA is one of those films that invokes mixed responses from audiences depending on their expectations: it seems to polarize people into love/hate categories. While not a great movie, TRAUMA has the courage to pose a storyline that is more involved with the interior aspects of a mind altered by physical events. We are asked to observe the world through the eyes of a battered brain which happens to belong to a man with a tattered past. If linear stories are preferred then this is not a film to recommend. For those viewers willing to crawl inside the malfunctioning mind, this film is mesmerizing and full of rewarding moments.
Ben (Colin Firth) is seen in the opening flashbacks driving a car at night with his wife Elisa (Naomie Harris). There is a car crash and Ben awakens from a coma in a hospital, convinced that Elisa is dead. He wanders the hospital, drawn to the morgue where the caretaker (Cornelius Booth) enhances the mystery of the place. Ben learns from the TV room that a famous singer Lauren Parris (Alison David), for whom Elisa has been a dancer, has been murdered. His mind disintegrates and everything that follows is a mélange of delusion mixed with bits of reality that exquisitely define how the post traumatic stress syndrome can be driven to psychosis if not recognized and treated.
Ben leaves the hospital (or does he?) and continues his art career in a vast building undergoing reconstruction (a building that has been a hospital....), befriended by his mate Roland (Sean Harris) and by his landlady 'Charlotte' (Mena Suvari). More flashbacks (mostly childhood memories) occur as Ben talks things out with a 'psychiatrist' (whose face we never see...) and during episodes with channeler Petra (Brenda Fricker) he is informed that Elisa is not dead. Ben becomes a suspect in the murder of Lauren Parris and his chasing after evidence ultimately leads to a series of disasters, a series of metaphors and delusions, all of which find Ben sitting back in the hospital where he started.
Did any of this story really happen, or was it the fabrication of a mind traumatized to the brink of breaking? That is left for the viewer to decide. Though plagued with some static moments and a lot of conversation buried in background music and sounds, Director Marc Evans with writer Richard Smith take us on a suspenseful journey, made all the more bizarre by some extraordinary camera work and tremendously inventive settings. Not a movie for everyone, but for those willing to enter the Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome mind, this case study is rewarding. Grady Harp -
Trauma is a rather curious film which promises a great deal, seems to deliver, but which, on reflection, doesn't really deliver at all. In a nutshell, Colin Firth is the husband who had a crash in which his wife apparently dies, and who can't come to terms with her death. The backdrop to this personal tragedy is the mystery of the murder of a pop star who was beaten up, stabbed and Lord knows what else, and whose body is found in a canal in East London. There is, at first, no apparent link between that murder and the apparent death of Colin Firth's wife, but slowly links seem to be made, and by and by it is suggested that it seems our Colin might well have done the deed. Apparently. And the words 'apparent' and 'apparently' are rather apt here, because nothing is quite as it seems. Colin, lucky chap, is adopted by pert Charlotte, played by Mena Suvari, who is the landlord's daughter and who tells Colin that she is keeping an eye on the place, a former hospital which is - again apparently - being converted into East London yuppie apartments. (Incidentally, no other tenants are ever seen and nor is there any evidence that building work is ongoing. The old hospital resembles both an abandoned building site and a skip.) And the impression is also given that Charlotte merely the figment of grief-stricken Colin's imagination. And so on. It is, in fact, rather futile to embellish on that resume, because much of it is irrelevant. Why, for example, the emphasis on Colin's near-obsession with ants? Well, the simple answer is that such an inexplicable obsession plays rather well in a horror film. Why the suggestion that much of what is happening is all in Colin's imagination? And how to explain Charlotte's apparent - that word again - naivety? Anyone over the age of 16 who has spent more than a week in any city will know that such trust as she demonstrates is lethal - and naturally she ends up dead. Then there's the slightly spooky janitor who had previously worked in the hospital before conversion work started and who has a thing about the hospital morgue in the basement. What is his role? Well, it is simply to be the film's slightly spooky janitor, because such characters are never out of place in a horror film. There is, however, far, far less to him than meets the eye. The odd thing is that while writing this I'm feeling ever so slightly guilty, rather like the guilt you feel after admitting that the ugly sister you're rather fond of is really no looker. You see, although from the off Trauma is rather baffling, it has the knack of drawing you in, you go with it, you are intrigued as to where it will all end. And that means Trauma has already achieved a lot, lot more than any number of oh-so-formulaic Hollywood schlock on far bigger budgets - you know the kind of thing: I Saw You Scream Last Summer VI. In fact, despite my carping, Trauma can more than hold its own. Its difficulty is, I think, that it sets itself higher standards, and although it achieves far more than the formula stuff, it doesn't quite get to where it wanted to. I am prepared to accept that it was filmed on a shoestring and on location, but that is no criticism. Clever cinematography makes a virtue of the fact that the only set the producers could come up with was the old hospital being converted into yuppie flats, and that cleverness with using limited resources also means that it looks a lot more expensive than I'm sure it actually cost. Elsewhere in reviews of this film you'll get the usual IMDb extremes from this being quite possibly the best horror film ever made to lamentations that the viewer spent more than a milli-second of rubbish such as this. One reviewer even goes as far as to claim that Trauma is definitive proof that we Brits simply can't make horror films. But ignore both extremes, for despite its faults, its illogicalities, its short-changing in the facts department and a rather over-wrought denouement, Trauma is a lot better than many of its Yankee rivals. But it isn't quite as good as it might have been. You'll only be really disappointed if you go along hoping for the usual expensive, glossy dross which Hollywood can turn out by the mile. It is a lot better than that.
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yoga-1-99651020 March 2012I don't believe in censorship, but I do believe in consequences. How's this for an idea: take a generic male character, give him some sympathetic circumstances, slowly add "character" by revealing at a snail's pace nothing but at best irritating instincts and characteristics, then pull a long-telegraphed whammy by undoing the sympathetic circumstances, then have him do something truly disgusting, then have him watch some TV.
Or, how about this: just film your own bowel movement? Same difference, and you could have saved us a lot of time.
There is not one positive thing to say about this experience, other than I'm hoping it will prove to have been carcinogenic, and that mercifully I'll die soon and the painful memory of having sat through this visual bile along with it. I understand that studios have budgets they have to spend, or they'll get smaller budgets the next year. Dear BBC: next time, buy crack with your end-of-fiscal-year surplus. Do something at least plausibly worthwhile with your cash. How they found a Colin Firth lookalike to sleepwalk through this tripe begs the question as to why they would want to in the first place.