You Were Never Really Here is not a matter of action. This is an action-thriller film that is not interested in action but rather the psychological impact it causes. This film emphasizes more on hidden emotions and atmospheric play. The film, directed by Lynne Ramaay, You Were Never Really Here is the fourth long film from Lynne Ramsay, even though his directorial debut has been started since 18 years ago through Ratcatcher. In addition, You Were Never Really Here is also quite far from the previous Ramsay movie We Need to Talk About Kevin, which is 6 years. And there is a reason behind it all. Ramsay is known as a filmmaker who will not compromise in any of his works, and he is also in this latest film. He seemed not to care so much about the risk of the audience who would lose interest when not focusing on the film for a moment.
With a duration of 90 minutes, Ramsay also slipped the flashback pieces suddenly. The narrative is almost abstract, but unique, this works in making the film move. The first mistake thay maybe we might make is judge this film before watching just because based on the premise of the clause about "Last Action Hero", whether you like the premise or hate it. Phoenix plays Joe, a stocky, gloomy man who looks scary. The first time we saw Joe, his hand wiped a hammer covered in blood. Joe then burned a photo of a little girl. It's like he just finished doing something deadly. Could he be a serial killer?
It was not.
Joe's next client is an official (Alex Manette) who asks to save his son, Nina (Ekaterina Samsonov) who is suspected of being traded in an underage prostitution place. "They say you are brutal". "I can," Joe answered calmly, as calm as the Minister of Education's response when responding. Of course, this ultimate mission would not run as smoothly as previous missions, because this time involved a conspiracy of high-ranking officials. The second mistake occurs if we focus too much on the plot about the conspiracy and then arrange the pieces of the story to form a straight narrative. That's not the point. In other more generic films, the premise like this will be a standard action film. But Ramsay was not fixated on the plot. Instead, he uses it to explore the psychology of his character. In order for us not to be distracted, Ramsay positioned his action in the distance. We are not involved in it, either just watching it through CCTV cameras or just being able to see the impact that follows.
This film can be regarded as a character study, and its character is one character that is difficult to study. A wise action when we pay attention to how Joe, who came back from "work", takes care of the elderly mother at home. Or see the action that runs the creed "life is reluctant, dead do not want to", such as sealing yourself with a crackle bag or standing over the safe line at the train station. Or how Joe grasped the warm hand of the man he shot before he died. When he opened his shirt, there were scars all over his body. What happened to Joe? We don't know for sure, but from the flashback cut, it seems like he had experienced domestic violence during childhood and PTSD when he was growing up.
Joe is a scary but fragile man. He looks confused, doesn't understand how time goes by or even about his own sanity. Which is real, which is imaginary? His life is composed of pieces from the moment, and Ramsay's film moves as if following Joe's mind. This is not so different from what Ramsay did in We Need to Talk About Kevin where we were brought into the mind of a woman who was made crazy because of her psychopathic child. We don't really know the chronology of what happened, but we were made successful in capturing his emotions.
As if the performance in his previous films was not intense enough, Phoenix appeared very strong here. He threw himself up and thickened his beard to give an intimidating impression, but his cold and rigid expression reflected a vulnerability. Following the tradition of all sociopaths in the world of cinema, the traits up to the smallest gestures look very tense. He is ready to explode at any time. Ramsay escalated this intensity with percussive and distortive scoring from Jonny Greenwood, departing far from his work on the Phantom Thread.
You Were Never Really Here so trusted the audience that he felt no need to explain. This film will not stop to explain clearly what happened. The author assumes we are intelligent and able to connect fragments into a single unit. We may also have to surrender ourselves to be submerged by the narrative. And how we just don't believe and surrender, we are in the hands of highly competent filmmakers.
