Review of You Were Never Really Here (2018)

REVIEW OF YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE

IF I HAD A HAMMER

“The only thing power respects, is power”

- Malcolm X

“Our fathers have painfully lost their way”

― Donovan, from the song “Susan on the West Coast Waiting”

Lynne Ramsay did something extraordinary. She mixed all the ingredients of an obvious blockbuster and produced a bomb. This film is a thriller, starring one of the most prominent actors of our time, chockablock with all manner of lurid, audience-grabbing violent spectacle. The box-office for the American theatrical release strangely aped the title, You Were Never Never Really Here. Ironically the strength of her abilities as a filmmaker will see this contemporary commercial debacle evolve into a cult classic.

All expectations in this genre were abandoned. She twinned Norman Bates from Psycho with Travis Bickle from Taxi Driver and placed them in a Hieronymus Bosch diorama. It is a stark world which oscillates from abstract, dark, extreme close ups to exquisitely rendered tableaus. The threadbare storyline is informed by snippets of non-sequential flashbacks. The most extreme moments of violence are seen through the deadpan view of security cameras. Unfortunately the trailer promoted a commonplace action drama, riddle with gore and suggesting a taught storyline. The audience was sold a boxing match and witnessed a ballet.

The tension in the first twenty minutes of You Were Never Really Here is spawned by an uncomfortable feeling of witnessing bad things as a bystander. The claustrophobic close ups turn the audience member into a perplexed eyewitness rather than a passive viewer. What are we to make of the burning of the photograph of the child? Who is the distraught bearded protagonist? (Joaquin Phoenix as Joe). Why is he in this dingy hotel in the Mid West? When he dispatches a mugger in a dark alley it brings to mind the avengers from the 1970s, echoes of Dirty Harry & Deathwish, but with a more psychotic dimension. The root of his demons is revealed. We arrive in the daylight of New York. His solidly middle class elderly mother is the key to the mystery. This genuinely loving relationship is peppered with him secretly engaging in self-asphyxiation in moments of repose. According to opaque flashbacks this is his personal antidote to the terrifying domestic violence of his youth, which has corroded the man. He failed to protect his mother years ago, but he has certainly made up for the physical deficits of being a child. One images the father has been metaphorical killed many times over in acts of vigilantism or targeting “Charlie” during his stint in the military. His domestic world is a dichotomy of saccharine family tenderness and grim acts of violence and self destruction. Such a person must turn to a vocation that is based not on money or standing, but a compulsion to right a wrong. The focus of his professional life is to rescue the most vulnerable, exploited class in our society: young girls who have been sold into the sex trade.

Joe frees child hostages abducted by pedophile rings. Think of the premise of the films series Taken but with Scorsese’ unhinged taxi driver instead of Liam Nielsen’s button down, white collar CIA operative. This avenger is an amalgamation of brute force born of raw emotion, rather than a purveyor of sophisticated spy techniques. You give him a picture and an address and he will bash his way into getting your the children. His weapon of choice is a ball-peen hammer. This tool is designed to smash metal but it does a very good job of crushing skulls and breaking bones. His one true friend, a fixer lawyer whom he might have met in the service, makes the arrangements. The rest unfolds as a calculated set piece. Anything that gets in his way receives a physical blow or a verbal lashing. This grim routine is upended when a mission to free an angelic blond child triggers a political scandal. The powers that be, like our avenging angel, have zero tolerance for missteps. Joe and his world must be terminated. The bulk of You Were Never Really Here’s narrative is consumed by this particular battle between the evil, all powerful, ruling male elite and our troubled lone wolf righter of wrongs.

The genius of this film lies in Ramsay making you believe the unbelievable. This angry deranged vet takes on an army of police and yet the absurdity of the story is never an issue. The film works as the director’s artistry in pulling the plot along with just the right amount of obscure flashback, clever daring-do and counterintuitive staging. Whereas a lesser director would highlight the fight scene with accented choreography and special effects, Ramsay gives us the terror of a silent CVT camera. There isn’t time to consider realism. We are caught in Ramsay’s world which showcases Joe’s prison of righteousness. One of the compelling elements of his character is the knowledge that most people are soldiers and not generals. Typically in this genre the protagonist exacts unspeakable revenge on hapless bit players. Joe is all business and channels all emotion to the task at hand. Nowhere is this more clear than when he confronts the agents who have taken the life of the person closest to him. Rather than an extended scene of torture (think Hannibal Lector engaging in cannibalism) Joe divvies-out a pain-killer while asking for information. It ends with the two lying on the floor singing a duet of a pop song which is playing in the background on the radio. Such is the demise of the foot soldiers in the battle of good and evil. Personal vengeance is a luxury reserved for the ruling class.

As grim as the setting can be there are numerous moments of tenderness. Ramsay reinterprets the canonical death scene of the woman under water from Night of the Hunter in a moving sequence where Joe buries the person most dear to him. You Were Never Really Here is filled with numerous extreme close ups that linger, rendering it a re-action movie, rather than action drama. The denouement comes when our hero rediscovers his charge. Unfortunately his baby has, metaphorically, grown up.

Joe’s mission in avenging the innocent is to safeguard their goodness. He fails. He contemplates the path of all true believers in complete despair. He demands perfection in others and it would be a sin to hold himself to a different standard. His associates are judged harshly: the gun runner who is late for an appointment is knocked unconscious; the trusted liaison defies a direct order and allows his child to see Joe’s face and is therefore banished forever. So what can we expect when his beloved charge follows his path of brutality? It is HIS fault. He has accidentally spawned a spiritual progeny, rather than a saintly child. All is not lost however as this silent young girl tames the beast. They are extremely damaged and no doubt face a lifetime of emotional torture, but they are together. Two blood soaked innocents joined as father and daughter. Their past might be exorcised with the hard work of being a family. Sex slaves are liberated. Oppressors are vanished. Guardians prevail. In the end they might ask the question: were we ever really there? That suggests a happy ending.