The Souvenir (15.)
Directed by Joanna Hogg.
Starring Honor Swinton Byrne, Tom Burke, Tilda Swinton, Jack McMullen, Tosin Cole and Richard Ayoade. 120 mins.
In which is charted the flawed relationship between a drip and a cold fish. It's the 80s and Julie (Byrne) is a well-spoken, posh young thing on the verge of attending film school. She has a wide circle of friends and a soundtrack of appropriate 80s tune ranging from The Specials to Robert Wyatt. Then at a party at her flat, she meets Anthony (Burke) who is something in the Foreign Office. He comes into the film as the back of a head in a black jacket, introduced as someone's lodger, a friend of a friend. He listens with detached enthusiasm to her plan for a film about poor people in Sunderland and a bond is formed. Within ten minutes the circle of friends are gone and opera dominates the soundtrack.
Anthony's low energy charisma comes to dominate her life, just as Burke's performance dominates the movie. He is like a Satanic dimmed bulb Stephen Fry. All that education, refined taste and intelligence has ossified, turned sour. His attraction for Julie seems to be based on his assumption of her frailty, that he can dominate her. He'll say something vaguely shocking or aggressive, but then follow it up with "I was joking." But actually, he is looking for a hiding place for his own weaknesses.
The majority of the film is set in Julie's Knightbridge maisonette where the windows look out on painted scenery. Hogg's oblique storytelling style is very effective in portraying the reality rather than the shouting matches of an abusive relationship. Tilda's girl Honor does rather well in Burke's shadow. She has to let him dominate but she shows that she has light and spirit enough for him to want to steal it. He is the film's dominant force though, and Burke is queasily effective. After the film has finished you'll want to shake off his presence.
Over the course of four films in just over a decade Joanna Hogg has gained considerable critical acclaim – proper high brow acclaim not the accumulation of newspaper stars – but though this latest film is crisp and clear it doesn't brim with the sense of talent and vision that her previous Exhibition had.
Directed by Joanna Hogg.
Starring Honor Swinton Byrne, Tom Burke, Tilda Swinton, Jack McMullen, Tosin Cole and Richard Ayoade. 120 mins.
In which is charted the flawed relationship between a drip and a cold fish. It's the 80s and Julie (Byrne) is a well-spoken, posh young thing on the verge of attending film school. She has a wide circle of friends and a soundtrack of appropriate 80s tune ranging from The Specials to Robert Wyatt. Then at a party at her flat, she meets Anthony (Burke) who is something in the Foreign Office. He comes into the film as the back of a head in a black jacket, introduced as someone's lodger, a friend of a friend. He listens with detached enthusiasm to her plan for a film about poor people in Sunderland and a bond is formed. Within ten minutes the circle of friends are gone and opera dominates the soundtrack.
Anthony's low energy charisma comes to dominate her life, just as Burke's performance dominates the movie. He is like a Satanic dimmed bulb Stephen Fry. All that education, refined taste and intelligence has ossified, turned sour. His attraction for Julie seems to be based on his assumption of her frailty, that he can dominate her. He'll say something vaguely shocking or aggressive, but then follow it up with "I was joking." But actually, he is looking for a hiding place for his own weaknesses.
The majority of the film is set in Julie's Knightbridge maisonette where the windows look out on painted scenery. Hogg's oblique storytelling style is very effective in portraying the reality rather than the shouting matches of an abusive relationship. Tilda's girl Honor does rather well in Burke's shadow. She has to let him dominate but she shows that she has light and spirit enough for him to want to steal it. He is the film's dominant force though, and Burke is queasily effective. After the film has finished you'll want to shake off his presence.
Over the course of four films in just over a decade Joanna Hogg has gained considerable critical acclaim – proper high brow acclaim not the accumulation of newspaper stars – but though this latest film is crisp and clear it doesn't brim with the sense of talent and vision that her previous Exhibition had.
