So conflicted…Lynne Ramsay’s (Morvern Callar, We Need to Talk About Kevin) You Were Never Really Here really is not a great movie. Yet it received an 88% on Rotten Tomatoes and 4 stars on Roger Ebert’s website. A few times during my viewing, I wanted to say aloud, “This movie sucks,” but, of course, that is something I would not do. But you can imagine how surprised I was when the movie received a round of applause after its conclusion. I was flabbergasted, but I was in an art theatre (this was the only place it was showing). It had been a good year and a half (Arrival) since the audience had last clapped at the conclusion of a movie. So I decided I would read a little about this movie and see what I missed that others saw. First, I will say that the performance of Joaquin Phoenix (Gladiator, Walk the Line) was extremely good. He was so even and heavy as a down and outgun for hire suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from what he witnessed while serving in the military and from suffering from events of his childhood he was never able to process. If we only look at Phoenix’s character as a character study, we’ve got something. We’ve actually got something good that we could build different stories around that would work. But this story? This story revolves around an issue that, honestly, many people will have a problem digesting. I understand that we want to have intrigue and surprises in the story, but not at the cost of what becomes the focal point of everything that happens. Ramsay could have done the same thing with a twist on the story that wouldn’t have made us squirm in our seats so much that really could have been as equally effective. Granted, this movie was adapted from an existing novel. Still, I believe the plot could, and should have, been changed. Hence, my internal conflict.
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