You Were Never Really Here (2017)

I am not really here. And nor are you.

Helena’s Notes:

Note1: I chose this film because it stars Joaquin Phoenix, who had delivered one of my favourite ever movie lines in “Gladiator”:

‘AM I NOT MERCIFUL?????!!!!!”

Still sends a shiver down my spine, it does.

Note2: Almost didn’t recognise – ok, didn’t recognise – Joaquin at first. Afterwards, I thought he looked like a famous Croatian actor Rade Šerbedžija does in just about everything.

Note3: I still prefer “Léon”.

The girl is not really in the green room.

Olga’s Notes:

Note1: Was supposed to see this film with a friend. Due to the unforeseen circumstances, which could only be described as one or more of us not liking the other as much as originally assumed, and the basic lack of courage to come out and say it, the two of us are no longer friends. A very unfortunate event, perhaps, but one that had left me determined not to let my private affairs taint my experience of this film.

Note2: Luckily, “You Were Never Really Here” pulls you in from the start. The soundtrack for starters is the best I have come across since “Betty Blue” (1986) – and by this I mean the soundtrack best suited for the movie. There are plenty of great soundtracks that have nothing in common with the actual story: I always wondered why is it that no one notices this, or informs the director?

Note3: Full marks for style and acting. And as for the story, it starts good and strong. But two-thirds in, it abruptly changes. I could describe this change as moving from a private appointment with a musk-scented, trigger-happy, baby-oiled dancer to middle Virginia and Leonard Woolf’s matrimonial bed – or I could just say that the story became disinterested in its own plot and wandered off in search of something bigger, better and, quite possibly, loftier.

I blame the director. She ought to know better than patronise her audience with the pretentious non-telling. Unless, of course, that’s exactly what her audience is after. In which case, this film clearly wasn’t meant for me from the start. 

This man is really some place other than here.