The slick, A24-esque marketing for Lynne Ramsay’s latest film, You Were Never Really Here seems designed to attract a certain kind of art bro, the kind of person with Nicolas Refn’s Drive firmly ensconced into their list of four favorite films on Letterboxd. While there are certainly similarities between the two neo-noir films, Ramsay’s effort is decidedly less concerned with being “cool.” It’s considerably more brutal, more confounding and less ripe for vaporwave meme plundering. But in many ways, it’s also more effective.
You Were Never Really Here is based on a book by off-kilter mystery author Jonathan Ames, but Ramsay’s script lifts the premise and some general pieces of tone while making the story wholly her own. Joaquin Phoenix stars as Joe, a brawny, salt-and-pepper-coiffed heavy whose day job appears to be beating men with a hammer for money. Joe has a military background and loads of childhood trauma fueling his little enterprise, wherein people hire him to retrieve kidnapped kids. He takes on a case just as simple as the one we see him finish in the film’s magnetic opening sequence, but the job goes screwy, devolving into a conspiracy as knotty as Joe’s admittedly fractured psyche.
It’s a very straightforward plot that, with the requisite “Save The Cat” film structure and maybe Liam Neeson in the lead, would be a modestly budgeted action thriller for the masses. But Ramsay’s take, while suspenseful, feels like an anti-thriller. There’s a startling matter-of-factness to the film’s violence – no fussy choreography or carefully orchestrated fight sequences. When Phoenix hits someone, they go down. He’s less a person in these sequences, than a blunt instrument. Ramsay captures his presence and wrath with biblical certainty. Phoenix transformed his body into a hulking mass of scars and meat, so he fills the frame up like some kind of vengeful wraith. He’s a man haunted by his demons, imbuing every scene he’s in with dread.
But what makes the film so unique is the relationship it depicts between Joe and his ailing mother, played ably by Judith Roberts. His life on the job may be brusque and opaque, but the scenes the two share in their little home are hilarious and heartwarming, a stark contrast to the lyrically executed pugilism of the main plot. These scenes give Joe a complexity that is far more fascinating than the only backstory we receive in quick cut flashbacks and obscured memories entreating the frame throughout the more harrowing set pieces. Along with some darkly comic moments elsewhere, that relationship keeps the film from being all doom and gloom all the time.
However, the film’s greatest strength is also its handicap. Ramsay never spells anything out for the audience, letting the images speak for themselves. It’s a more engaging viewing experience, having to pay close attention so that puzzle piece edges can adhere to their neighboring counterparts, but by the film’s end, the conclusion feels a little hollow.
Ramsay illuminates a city’s hidden underbelly, with a cast of character who primarily exist in the margins (something highlighted by Phoenix walking down a city street while obscured by passing cars in the foreground). She’s also clearly expressing something potent about the cyclical nature of violence, trauma and depression, but it never feels like it fully congeals with the core premise or the threadbare plot.
You Were Never Really There is short enough that multiple viewings to further parse the narrative wouldn’t be asking too much of a viewer, and Jonny Greenwood’s throbbing score is honestly reason enough to see it more than once. But it’s hard not to feel like something is missing. Whether or not that missing piece is intentional seems beside the point. Still, it’s one of the year’s most unique genre outings.
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