3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): You Were Never Really Here

2017 Lynne Ramsay (We Need to Talk About Kevin) -- Amazon

Kent's post. 

Some mornings (I watch most movies on weekend mornings, before the Peanut Gallery awakens) I want something dumb, some mornings I want something familiar, and some mornings I want something violent. I am sure my Future Therapist has something to say about that.

This is a Small Movie, an extremely narrow focus on trauma and surviving it, through the lense of violence. Its been called a very violent movie, and it is, but amazingly most of the violence happens just off camera, as if it was taking a PG approach. But no, its not PG, for the onscreen material is so very not PG. We don't need to see the ball-pean hammer smashing skulls to understand what's going on.

What's going on is this. Joe (Joaquin Phoenix, Joker) is an ex-soldier, an ex-FBI agent who now works a seedy job for a seedy guy recovering trafficked kids. Joe does not bring a gun, Joe brings a hammer. You see, Joe has a lot, a LOT, of rage to work out on these evil men. Joe is haunted, haunted by the abuse he suffered at the hands of his father, and the horrible things he saw in his past careers. We all have those moments where some embarrassing memory creeps in and we internally cringe at ourselves. Joe sees his worst moments over and over: locking himself in the closet with a bag over his head to drown out the beatings his mother was taking,  opening a cargo container full of dead girls, seeing a child shoot another child over a candy bar. Joe never escaped it, so he lives in squalor with his mother and takes Jobs where he can unleash his demons.

And then Joe is given the job that unravels everything. The pedophile ring is connected to a man in power, a connected man, one able to influence police and other agencies to do his bidding. In the end, Joe has to kill a LOT of people to save Nina.

There isn't a message in all this violence. Its just anger and retribution played out on the screen. This is a character study in trauma. But at the end, for just a brief moment, both Joe and Nina are given a reprieve, as she states, "Its a beautiful day," and Joe agrees.