You Were Never Really Here

Twenty-for-Seven #9 (Day 4)
2017, d. Lynne Ramsay - AmazonPrime

I've been putting off watching this as I had heard this was difficult and ultraviolent.  I think my brain concocts far worse imagery with such a suggestion than with what actually appears on film.  But then I'm pretty desensitized to violence at this point.  You Were Never Really Here is quite violent to be sure, as our protagonist's preferred weapon is a ball peen hammer and his deep seeded rage.

Jaoquin Phoenix stars as Joe, who spends his time caring for his mother, contemplating suicide and finding missing children.  Though it's never explicitly stated it's inferred through background images that Joe has both history in the military and FBI, and that his mental health is likely what sidelined him.  Flashbacks reveal he was abused as a child by his father (who also used a ball peen hammer), and now he takes care of his elderly mother in the same home he grew up in.  He also clearly has a mission to save abused children, but through black market/under-the-table means, and uses this path to get out his anger.

The title is the only real reference to how Joe operates, despite the trail of destruction he leaves he seems to disappear from any real consequences, until his latest mission, rescuing a senator's aide's daughter from a child sex ring, which has connections much higher than anyone suspected.  The blowback on Joe and his very small circle of family and acquaintances, is brutal.

While film is crisp, brisk and action heavy (but in a very minimal way) it's also very subtle in its portrayal of Joe and Ramsay has a very deliberate hand in how and when she reveals information about him.  Are some acts that would appear suicidal just comforting to him?  It's hard to know what is what with Joe.

Phoenix is always an actor who invests in the roles he performs, and here he's living the part of a grizzled, traumatized veteran who knows his purpose but still has to fight himself to carry on.  It's wholly believable, and a little upsetting.  He seems relatively nice but you can tell there's something very dark living underneath.

Johnny Greenwood provides an ominous soundtrack to the picture which reinforces it's art-house action movie vibe, certainly elevating it as well.  After watching uber-stylized ultra-violence with two John Wick movies back-to-back, it's surprising to see something much simpler in composition be just as effective, if not even more impactful.