Review of You Were Never Really Here (2017) by Kenr — 29 May 2019

Could those who gave this a ‘standing ovation’ have been abusing substances or on the payroll of the promoters? This again proves you may be able to fool some of the people, some of the time. I’d suggest the producers, B.

F.I., Amazon Studios, etc, would have lost considerable sums of money with this pretend movie. As this overly convoluted maze progresses it makes you wonder how Joaquin Phoenix and other cast, managed to keep a straight face (might have been interesting to have seen their faces while they read the script) At times it looks as if the editor and director threw some footage in the air and spliced it together in the order it landed – then, attempted to copy Kubrick during one of his worst moments.

In one scene, Phoenix jumps into a country lake and proceeds to endlessly sink into the deepest abyss (a-la Atlantic Ocean) who makes these foolish ‘technical’ decisions? The graphic violence (whether on or off screen) is as off-putting as the snail pacing and lack of worthy script - what sparse dialogue is uttered, is so poorly recorded and articulated most is unintelligible.

Director/screenplay writer Lynne Ramsay has to shoulder much of the blame for this morbid failure to connect with a thinking audience (in preference to appealing to a nebulose, artsy bunch). While there may have been some stylish photography much of it looked like the operator forgot to turn off the camera between takes – with someone then thinking it looked so trendy they used it several times over.

Mostly for those who want to read more into each scene than is articulated on screen or simply want to justify what they ‘think’ they understood, otherwise, a miserable experience that stretches its 85min R/T into tediously grotesque boredom and wastes a Phoenix performance.