Review of You Were Never Really Here (2017) by Glenn G — 10 Apr 2018

IT'S HAMMER TIME - My Review of YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE (2 Stars).

Lynne Ramsay needs to make a horror film asap...and she must collaborate again with her composer Jonny Greenwood of Radiohead fame. The two of them know exactly how to scare and unnerve viewers, how to use tremulous sounds and eerie silences to shake you to your core or fill you with dread. These visceral talents don't come along very often, and when matched with the proper genre has the possibilities of greatness.

YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE, has great things in it, but is far from great. The pair worked so well together on Ramsay's prior feature, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN, that I was excited to see their latest efforts. What transpires has incredible cinematic heft, gorgeous, deeply felt cinematography by Thomas Townend (another KEVIN alum), fantastic use of sound, shocking violence juxtaposed with unexpected tenderness, all in the service of something I found to be criminally underwritten.

It's rare that I'll complain about a film being too visual. I did so with last year's TWO LOVERS, which wasted its best resource, Debra Winger's indelible rasp getting the chance to talk and talk and talk. I'm doing so again with a potentially powerful film that, for me, could have used a little more talking and a little less visual oomph, despite its utter gorgeousness.

Your enjoyment of this film may also be dependent on your feelings for Joaquin Phoenix as an actor. While I loved him in TO DIE FOR, WALK THE LINE, and HER, sometimes his method style of performing leans heavily on navel gazing aspects I find the opposite of entertaining. It doesn't mean he isn't skilled. He's a great actor, and his role as Joe, an Avenging Angel of sorts who makes a living saving young girls kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery, certainly has power and a deeply lived-in quality. But...except for some surprisingly sweet scenes with Judith Roberts (great actor), as his ailing mother, I grew tired of this endless mumble of a character.

YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE feels like DEATH WISH married PUZZLE OF A DOWNFALL CHILD, which in layman's terms means a revenge fantasy with an elliptical, artistic aesthetic. Imagine TAXI DRIVER, which the film closely resembles, without much dialogue. You're left wondering, where's that "You talking to me?" scene. Fifteen year old Ekaterina Samsonov has a wonderfully sullen look as Nina, the main missing girl in the story, but she barely ever speaks. Compare that to the unforgettable scene in TAXI DRIVER, where a young Jodie Foster shares a meal with Robert DeNiro and justifies her life as a young sex worker. Foster had so much to work with in that scene, whereas Samsonov just stares blankly most of the time.

YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE also has plenty of violence, with Phoenix wielding a hammer against the awful people he seeks to avenge. This is truly upsetting stuff. The film also builds and builds as it peels back the layers of corruption to reveal something more sick and insidious than imagined, although in this current cultural moment, I expect nothing less of powerful people than what they do here.

More than anything, this film felt like an experiment in how to convey so much with so little talking. At times, the imagery more than makes up for that, especially with its underwater scenes reminiscent of TRAINSPOTTING. Greenwood and editor Joe Bini make sure their jump scares have maximum impact, and Ramsay remains a one-of-a-kind filmmaker. It's a case of great filmmaker, wrong genre. YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE feels underdeveloped and gets monotonous, yet Ramsay has the skills to make pure cinema. Get her a horror movie now!