—J J Siddharthan and V Vamsi Viraj
This is a near-perfect film; it was superbly written, directed, acted, photographed, and edited. It takes time to grow on you, to get used to its grammar and vision. Quite minimalist, it dwells more on the man than the action, the blood, or the story. And it feels a bit close to one of our states of mind when he keeps asking, “What are we doing?” But of course, not so close—he appears to be suffering from trauma, maybe PTSD, from the kind of careers he has led in his life before. It leads him to fantasize about suicidal thoughts continuously. The basic premise of You Were Never Really Here is that of a hitman out to rescue a young girl from bad men. By the end of the movie, it seems like everyone except the girl needs rescuing and avenging. It is a tricky subject to film, as the storytelling, if not precise and tight, and if in the hands of an amateur filmmaker, can quickly go into the zone of manipulating the audience with cheap thrills and gore or even worse—self-misery porn. But thank the movie gods, this is where Lynne Ramsay comes in.
Before watching this latest feature-length film of hers (one of her only 4), we watched 3 of Lynne Ramsay’s short films from the 90s and early 2000s. From these shorts, we realized that she has an innate ability to be very precise, almost like a mathematician in what she shows, which often leads to an unusual staging of shots that never fails to entertain us. Even the music is on point, almost feels horror-ish. Maybe for the characters in the film it is a horror, living in that world, seeing people going about their business, oblivious of evil in places far and near.
This type of film grammar was used by Alfred Hitchcock—another mathematician—to heighten the intensity of emotions that the audience goes through while watching his films. But the main difference between Hitchcock and Ramsay using similar film grammar is in what emotions they trigger in their respective audiences. Hitchcock’s films draw you in with tension and suspense to tell stories of human nature, while Ramsay’s works flow with raw and powerful emotions of severely damaged people that an average person is not used to.
The reason why we want to reiterate that this is a near-perfect film was because throughout the film, we were within the movie—you feel it rather than having seen it. You are never once taken out of the film by an individual element—be it the great acting or excellent writing it features. For example, you could fully appreciate Joaquin Phoenix’s acting only when you reflect on certain scenes after having watched the film. For example, take that scene near the end of the final act, where he breaks down and tears his shirt and tie, and you come very close to being in awe of the actor to a degree where you almost want to get outside the movie and praise the individual element, but the scene cuts quickly without affecting the rhythm of the scene. In fact, there were many such instances where you are taken to the extremes and brought back to equilibrium in the most organic way.
How does she do this? Here Ramsay plays a gamble, by choosing to focus mainly on the visuals and minimal screenplay to tell a story, instead of relying on the traditional plotting. She makes us focus fully on the central character, Joe. He is a broken man who has seen the depths of human evil, and is always on edge. So, when he’s actually focused on his work, he seems to be channeling all of his dissipating energy and anger and sadness into a concentrated brutality. You keep expecting some explosive climax, but it’s all quiet. The director wants to focus on the hero’s inner demons, on his past, and his struggle living in the present. In too many movies, the hitman is shown to be unemotional, just doing the ‘work’, unleashing violence and disappearing into the shadows. But this movie shows the realistic side—how and why some hitmen struggle, whether due to their past or present fights with evil. He seems like a force of nature and when he gets overwhelmed in the middle, you shudder at the thought of bigger forces of nature. But all these forces are made of men and once you realize this, you can deconstruct and destroy anybody.
Upon its release, You Were Never Really Here was compared a lot to Martin Scorsese’s ‘Taxi Driver’: in which an ex-military man tries his best to care for a sexually abused teenage girl in the shady world of New York. Ramsay herself spoke of how she’s interested in the aura and emotions of young girls, about wanting to capture something ambiguous and unworldly there. Both films get into the minds of the character trying to make a change, rather than the act of changing itself. How volatile and vulnerable can a tough man’s mind be? Are they all as tough inside as they seem to be on the outside? You Were Never Really Here goes a step further and brings the character’s childhood trauma as an influential factor in his current identity. By showing that, and how ‘damaged’ he is, Lynne Ramsay humanizes a hitman. And in that beautiful ending—a masterpiece in storytelling and one that answers all the existential questions the film has posed till then—I truly felt sorry for a ruthless hitman. I really wanted him to live. I wanted him to let go of his suicidal thoughts and go on a journey with the girl. And now that we think about the closing shot, maybe he did.
Edited by Abhirami G
Article 19 