Review of You Were Never Really Here (2017) by Linda C — 19 Apr 2018

Dark, gritty, and emotionally wrenching.

Joaquin Phoenix delivers a subtle but outstanding performance as Joe, a veteran with PTSD who rescues kidnapped kids. He stumbles through life, barely functional as he relives childhood and adult traumas both in his head and in real life by his own hand. His violence is delivered with the same flat affect as he has when walking down the street, and the audience is shielded from the goriest views of his actions much as he tries to shield himself from the gore in his own mind. Yet despite his easy violence, he has retained enough humanity as shown both in his gentle relationship with his elderly and emotionally damaged mother and in his handling of a traumatized child victim of repeated rape.

There is little dialogue in the movie and much of it is frustratingly hard to understand. The movie begins in media res, with the audience left to play catch-up as the story unfolds in sometimes seemingly unrelated scenes. I suspect these were choices made by the director both to keep the viewer on edge and to mirror Joe's own muffled and sometimes confused relationship with the world around him.

This wasn't a fun movie to watch, but I left the theater in sort of stunned admiration, compelled afterwards to talk about it and read more about the film. I guess that says it all.