Joaquin Phoenix takes on the role of the burly “hired gun” Joe, — a retired war veteran with a disturbing past — a dishevelled looking man with an overgrown beard. demented voice-over in Taxi Driver, but none of Ramsay's films contain voice-over narration—she doesn't need it. But You Were Never Really Here amounts to more than a Taxi Driver for our time. With Joaquin Phoenix, Judith Roberts, Ekaterina Samsonov, John Doman. My sister was married to a toxic, bigoted, controlling, emotionally abusive and manipulative man... Facebook comments not loading? He’s by turns savage and self-destructive. Though relayed only in snatches, Joe's memories form a tapestry of pain so visceral that any further explanation for his current line of work would have felt superfluous. Can a movie be exhilarating and agonizingly depressing at the same time? His determination to keep going despite yearning to end his misery by taking himself permanently out of the picture makes him seem more regretfully resigned than relentless about his quest for vengeance. Every shot feels essential, and many are startling, but especially those from the protagonist's perspective. The suggestion of violence and blood is twice as effective as actually witnessing a blood spluttered screen. Current work credits include Film Editor at Flavourmag, Film Journalist/Writer at HeyUGuys, London Live's London Film Club and DIY Magazine. Not to mention the tour de force that is Joaquin Phoenix. Search is currently unavailable. Stay connected to our city’s pulse by joining the Reader Revolution. April 12, 2018 —a broken man's kinship with, and absolution through, a young, female prostitute—cuts deeper in Ramsay's film. "You Were Never Really Here" has a jittery caffeinated energy reminiscent of the great sleazeball thrillers of the 1970s and '80s, gritty New York movies, corrupt cop movies. When a job spins out of control, Joe's nightmares overtake him as a conspiracy is uncovered leading to what may be his death trip or his awakening. In its 26th year, the festival stretches itself in celebration—and in service. The film opens with Joe taking a crowbar to the shoulder; his response to the crowbar is frightening, automatic, and without remorse, almost as jarring as the initial assault. Once failed wannabe actress, Ex-music industry veteran who once dabbled in Artist Management, and now Film Journalist extraordinaire. Joaquin Phoenix plays Joe, a former Marine who deployed to an undisclosed desert and became an FBI agent upon his return to the United States. Joe’s body is shown to be covered in burn marks, scars from slashes, and bruises from blunt force trauma. He is indifferent and clinical and evokes fear and can make the disappearance of any of his victims seem like they were “never really here”. Given the green light to achieve whatever is necessary to her captors to make them suffer, but as the story unfurls Joe finds himself getting a lot more than he bargained for as events take a dramatic and unseen turn as he is dragged further into doing the ethical thing to recover this girl. Both movies contain jaw-dropping sequences in which the hero storms into a brothel to retrieve the girl and obliterates every complicit man in his path. Perhaps better than any filmmaker of her generation, Ramsay (Ratcatcher, Movern Callar) understands and conveys the interior lives of broken people. by Janet Smith on April 11th, 2018 at 5:39 PM. But despite this, the familiar foe of PTSD remains a core thread throughout the film: Joe is dissociated with those around him, on edge and imposing yet in a state of emotional pain that bubbles just beneath the surface. copyrighted © 2020 The Express Tribune. Surprisingly, the movie still is a must-see despite those flaws. Copyright © 2020 The Federalist, a wholly independent division of FDRLST Media, All Rights Reserved. A enlisted thinktank brought to you by Task & Purpose. The views expressed by the writer and the reader comments do not necassarily reflect the views and policies of the Express Tribune. We speak Chicago to Chicagoans, but we couldn’t do it without your help. Registration on or use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Service. Joe’s problems are simultaneously relatable (transitioning from deployed military life is difficult!) Film He has a very specific set of skills, and he uses them to great advantage. In You Were Never Really Here, justice isn’t blind — it’s a veteran armed with a ball-peen hammer. Joaquin Phoenix gives a morosely post-modern interpretation of the violent vigilante archetype in “You Were Never Really Here” that’s as unexpected as his portrayal of a very offbeat private detective in 2014’s “Inherent Vice.” In films ranging from “Gladiator” to the Johnny Cash biopic “Walk the Line” to the SF dramedy “Her,” Phoenix has been able to make a wide variety of characters convincing, and this is one of his most interesting roles yet. Everyone remembers Travis Bickle's Surreal and hypnotic, ‘You Were Never Really Here’ is 21st century’s ‘Taxi Driver’. Phoenix rises like the ashes from the flames as he leads the intensity as each scene unfolds and connects to the world around us, one in which is timely in the fact that the rich and powerful and their seedy and vile pass-times ruin the lives of those who they think have a duty to do whatever they please or get –off on. Joe sees himself in Nina, which makes their relationship sadder but also meatier: for Travis, saving Iris is simply a narcissistic excuse to "wash all the scum off the streets," but for Joe it's the chance to save an abused child just as he once wished to be saved. In Taxi Driver, Travis sees Iris slathering jam on her toast, which solidifies his vision of her as a child and himself as her white knight. Each film explores the seedy underworld of its contemporary Manhattan through the fractured mind of a traumatized war veteran. While Taxi Driver depicted a man disintegrating into darkness and lashing out at the world around him, which he so clearly vilified, You Were Never Really Here shows a man who inhibits the darkness. You Were Never Really Here is a psycho-drama that evokes the splendour of Martin Scorsese’ Taxi Driver with a broodingly paced plot, relying heavily on suggestion than any real brutality and an eerily haunting and atmospheric score from Radiohead’s Johnny Greenwood. There are outward scars to mirror his inner trauma. You Were Never Really Here itself is a work of art. At the end of the day, much like Bickle, Joe is not whole or different. We're more distracted than ever and more willing to disbelieve or ignore the quotidian horrors all around us. The unspooling of his personal history resembles the suspense of horror movie, where a small glimpse of the macabre kicks the imagination into overdrive. Phoenix’s nuanced yet epic performance—the guy’s perfected pushing the brink of losing control—melds well with Ramsay’s impressionistic style. Phoenix received the Best Actor award for his performance at last year’s Cannes Film Festival, where Ramsay received the Best Screenplay prize. ‘You Were Never Really Here’ Is A Tragic, 21st-Century Version Of ‘Taxi Driver’. What keeps those elements from turning Joe into some kind of ironic metrosexual parody of the traditional tough guy is Phoenix’s ability to make him depressingly believable, haunted by a previous rescue gone wrong, the horrors of war, and his abusive father’s bloody brutality. Directed by Lynne Ramsay. 10 You Were Never Really Here. It’s never easy to watch, but, like we said, it’s exhilarating. At times the soundtrack, which alternates between what is best described as a classical cacophony, and a sort of remixed version of the synth soundtrack of Top Gun, becomes indecipherable from the sound within the scene. Which is, of course, saying something. You Were Never Really Here is out in Cinemas March 9th. In Taxi Driver, Robert De Niro plays Travis Bickle, a depressed, laconic cabbie who befriends a teenage prostitute and decides that saving her will be his salvation. This is not to say that Scorsese, an oft-imitated master of the device, spoon-feeds the audience, but Ramsay seems more trusting of her viewer to pick up on visual clues. But that’s not really what hammers you. You Were Never Really Here is about what happens to a sheepdog when his core identity revolves around his ability to save everyone but himself. He tweets @TheKhalidRafi (. The author enjoys writing and is passionate about Pakistan Cricket. CSO Sessions Episode 3: Stravinsky, Saint-Georges, & Dvořák, The Daily Reader, Early Warnings, and Food & Drink e-mails, Highlights of the Chicago International Film Fest. Unlike Travis Bickle’s graphically gore-splattered bullets-and-blade slaughter spree in “Taxi Driver,” Joe’s mission is shown as a stylishly disjointed montage of mostly black-and-white security camera footage, accompanied by jump-edited audio segments of the oldie “Angel Baby.” Bad guys are swiftly and efficiently dispatched by Joe’s ball peen hammer, with no need for either him or us to linger over the results. Really not fair, and is rather misleading, to compare this film to Taxi Driver. For more information, please see our Comments FAQ. But with this film, as with all her others, Ramsay impels us to see. Get the latests news, prebuys and contest updates. In Ramsay's film, Joaquin Phoenix is Joe, a depressed, laconic hit man who specializes in rescuing underage girls from white-collar sex rings and bonds with one child who reminds him of himself. Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive. Nothing in this film is accidental. of 4. Spoilers for You Were Never Really Here follow.. Joe is a troubled man. At least the riders in Travis's cab talked to him; today, they'd probably stare at their phones, riding in complete silence. Phoenix never disappoints and yet again he immerses himself into the role with passionate disconnection. His flashbacks feature what could be his deployment to Iraq or the horrible thing he found in the FBI; his mother drops hints of a failed relationship. What to stream as part of the 56th annual CIFF, Aaron Sorkin’s new drama shows what happens when it’s time to fight and “the whole world is watching.”. You Were Never Really Here is a psycho-drama that evokes the splendour of Martin Scorsese’ Taxi Driver with a broodingly paced plot, relying heavily on suggestion than any real brutality and an eerily haunting and atmospheric score from Radiohead’s Johnny Greenwood. Instead of being the cathartic climax of the film, a la “Taxi Driver,” freeing the girl sets in motion a series of shockingly lethal complications that threaten to cost Joe everyone he knows, everything he has, and what’s left of his mind. Before that moment, Joe imagines an alternate ending to his story. Black Harvest Film Festival is still a party, City Hall highlights public servants actually serving the public, Showing The violence is usually hidden, but the result is not. PHOTO: IMDB. Having Phoenix play the role with a hugely bushy Mel Gibson beard and greasy hair that’s long enough to tie back was a strange choice in itself. In the end, however, both found ways to show that they were uniquely talented to guard the society which considered them outsiders — a familiar feeling for many who serve overseas. You Were Never Really Here pries inside the character’s monumentally fucked-up head, and it pries inside your head, too. You Were Never Really Here is, at its core, a movie about brute force. Giuseppe Capotondi’s latest looks at the dark inauthenticity of the art world. We begin recognizing his character as someone who executes what he does merely to survive and contribute for his mother, it’s the only skill he has but the outcome of his assignments don’t always sit well on his conscious. Such a surreal and grisly tableau would have felt at home in Taxi Driver, perhaps, but here it has a modern edge.
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