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You Were Never Really Here (2017)
A pulpy noir thriller which hits you in the head real hard
In her fourth feature film, "You were never really here" Lynne Ramsay touches on a topic few other female contemporaries have done, making a pulpy noir exploring the psyche of a broken man.
The movie received a 10-minute standing ovation at Cannes and the accolade for the best actor as the nuanced details of this humble indie film is taken forward by the sheer force that is Joaquin Phoenix (Joe), with inordinate help from Ekaterina (Nina).
References to "Psycho" and "Taxi driver" are made throughout, with the movie being based on "Jonathan Ames" . It revolves around ex-militant Joe who reveals the cruel world and unspoken emotions of a traumatized man, battling PTSD and on the verge of insanity. He meets Nina in rather unfortunate circumstances in his arduous and troubled journey and therein shows the soft side of an otherwise callous and ruthless man. Characters in the film share anguish and victim-hood and moments of Joe's thinking are sometimes absent from the film since we are inside his head. It's the kind of movie that moves with you, a visual narration that may look like that of a hitman movie but instead rends the idea and provides a sui generis outlook of it. No shot or cut here is idle or extraneous and it shies away from the lurid ways of action sequences.
The brilliance of auteur filmmaker Lynne Ramsay takes up a physical manifestation through the movie as it provides a visceral and visual effect with its perfect scene transitions, angled shots off mirrors and innuendos. Joaquin Phoenix, with the reputation of being a chameleon in his roles ("Her", "Joker") brings up his method acting abilities into Joe, improvising most of the scenes in the presence of a deliberately incoherent script. He, at a point of the movie, sits with a dying victim, gently singing along to Charlene's "I've Never Been to Me." Townend's calm, crisp camerawork and Bini's editing are commendable and praise to Jonny Greenwood (Phantom Thread, There Will Be Blood) for a thrilling score that blends its beats with the chaotic noise of the streets - a pulsating tempo that drives the plot forward.
The movie is a study in damage and barely lasts 90 minutes, but trust you me, there's so much going on in each second that in the end you'll never know what hit you.
References to "Psycho" and "Taxi driver" are made throughout, with the movie being based on "Jonathan Ames" . It revolves around ex-militant Joe who reveals the cruel world and unspoken emotions of a traumatized man, battling PTSD and on the verge of insanity. He meets Nina in rather unfortunate circumstances in his arduous and troubled journey and therein shows the soft side of an otherwise callous and ruthless man. Characters in the film share anguish and victim-hood and moments of Joe's thinking are sometimes absent from the film since we are inside his head. It's the kind of movie that moves with you, a visual narration that may look like that of a hitman movie but instead rends the idea and provides a sui generis outlook of it. No shot or cut here is idle or extraneous and it shies away from the lurid ways of action sequences.
The brilliance of auteur filmmaker Lynne Ramsay takes up a physical manifestation through the movie as it provides a visceral and visual effect with its perfect scene transitions, angled shots off mirrors and innuendos. Joaquin Phoenix, with the reputation of being a chameleon in his roles ("Her", "Joker") brings up his method acting abilities into Joe, improvising most of the scenes in the presence of a deliberately incoherent script. He, at a point of the movie, sits with a dying victim, gently singing along to Charlene's "I've Never Been to Me." Townend's calm, crisp camerawork and Bini's editing are commendable and praise to Jonny Greenwood (Phantom Thread, There Will Be Blood) for a thrilling score that blends its beats with the chaotic noise of the streets - a pulsating tempo that drives the plot forward.
The movie is a study in damage and barely lasts 90 minutes, but trust you me, there's so much going on in each second that in the end you'll never know what hit you.