Review of The Souvenir: Part II (2021) by Jluis_001 — 13 Nov 2021

In 2019, The Souvenir received near-uniform acclaim from the so-called especializad critic, and when I actually watched the film, I was quite surprised at how sterile it actually was.

It's nothing new of course, the critics and I don't usually see eye to eye, but that the same thing happened to me with both films, makes me wonder if it was really me who missed something.

I'm not sure what prompted the director to believe this story deserved a sequel.

Nothing in the first part's story hinted that anything more was needed. But here we are, and bottom line what I couldn't get out of my mind is that The Souvenir Part II is basically the idealization of post-tragedy events.

Writer/director Joanna Hogg picks up this story based on her real life right where the first film ended. But this one focuses, as expected, on how her main character processes her emotions over the loss she suffered in the first film, but this is where the fundamental flaw of the film is revealed and this has to do with her character and her own internal conflicts, both personal and professional with her working on her thesis as a film student, the whole in-depth monologue may have more than clear meaning to its creator, but what about the viewers?

Joanna Hogg exposes an interesting story that unfortunately neither she, nor her protagonist manage to externalize in a way that means more than what it means to her.

It's still a good film, and I actually liked it better than the first part, but I also think that a lot of the praise received is undeserved.