You Were Never Really Here (2017)

You Were Never Really Here (2017)

6/10

Starring

Joaquin Phoenix

Directed by Lynne Ramsay

This movie, with a mouthful of a title, is a good enough film to watch from the moment things start to get twisted and interesting. The buildup, which is meant to be cinematic, engaging, and thrilling through the way flashbacks are edited in, could be seen as a drag or distraction.
We spend a considerable amount of time getting to know how twisted the mind of our anti-hero, Joe (Joaquin Phoenix), is. This time is shared between exploring his relationship with his mother, flashbacks to his childhood with an abusive father, and his time in the military.

Before we dive into the plot, I want to point out that Joaquin Phoenix has proven over the years to be a fantastic actor. He’s good at delivering performances across different movie genres that only a few actors can pull off.
This movie is also a true test of how good he is. We start by seeing Joe as a hired gun who, after leaving the military, spends his time rescuing people. However, Joe isn’t mentally stable. He struggles with flashbacks of his abusive father, who tormented both him and his mother, and he often contemplates ending his own life.
He now lives with his aged mother, taking care of her, and though he desires to be dead, her being alive in a way keeps him going.

Joe is given a job to rescue the daughter of a senator. The senator personally asks him to save his daughter, Nina, who has been kidnapped by a child sex trafficking ring.
Joe takes on the job, believing the problem is similar in intensity to the others he’s helped with. What he doesn’t know is that the child sex trafficking ring provides services to high-ranking government officials, and Nina is the favorite of a top government official.
From this point on, the movie gets very intense, and the editing becomes top-notch. We transition seamlessly between flashbacks and the present, with a musical score that blends perfectly into the film.

After saving Nina, the government official sends the police and other agents to kill Joe, bring back the girl, and eliminate everyone Joe works with. The attempt to kill Joe doesn’t go well—Joe attacks the officer and escapes, but Nina is kidnapped again.

Now, Joe must deal with the aftermath of the police tracking him down to his home and his urge to save Nina. The movie is relatively short, and many things you’d expect to happen between Joe going after Nina and finding her don’t. Instead, the movie ends in a surprising way that’s worth a good pat on the back for Lynne Ramsay, who directed and wrote the screenplay for this book adaptation.
At the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, Ramsay won the Best Screenplay award, and Phoenix won Best Actor for this movie.