In terms of work rate, it seems Lynne Ramsay is shaping up to be a kind of Glaswegian Terrence Malick. There was a nine-year gap between her second feature, Morvern Callar (2002), and her third, We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011). Now You Were Never Really Here, based on Jonathan Ames’ novel, arrives seven years after Kevin. Happily, it’s well worth the wait.
The gap in Ramsay’s CV is partly accounted for by a high-profile walk-out from Natalie Portman Western Jane Got A Gun. Her latest might well have been titled ‘Joe Got A Hammer’. In outline — a guy is hired to rescue a girl from a brothel — it could be the latest Liam Neeson action-fest directed by some French bloke. But Ramsay couldn’t care less about hits gone wrong or political conspiracies. Instead she offers an unflinching stare into a tottering male psyche, marked by a singularity of voice, a stunning control of form and a feel for characters caught in seemingly bottomless anguish.
It’s thankfully only 85 minutes long because your nervous system couldn’t take much more.
The central figure, [Joaquin Phoenix](https://www.empireonline.com/people/joaquin-phoenix/()){href='https://www.empireonline.com/people/joaquin-phoenix/()' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer'}’s Joe, is a hitman for hire, gentle with his fragile mother (Judith Roberts, excellent), partial to acts of self-asphyxiation and super-handy with a mallet. Ramsay sketches his backstory in vibrant, almost subliminal vignettes; he was seemingly abused as a child, served in the Gulf War and discovered a truck full of bodies while working for the FBI. None of this information comes easily. Ramsay makes you work to piece it together. Even then it won’t add up.
Joe is hired by a State Senator (Manette) to rescue his daughter Nina (Ekaterina Samsonov) from a high-end Manhattan brothel and then kill everyone on site. A disenfranchised war vet, often isolated in his car, rescuing a blonde kid in a gory brothel shootout smacks of Taxi Driver (there are shades of Senator corruption too). But You Were Never Really Here is less obviously violent — Ramsay’s scenes often upsettingly begin just after the blood has been spilt — but equally visceral and discomforting. On the soundtrack, a voiceover detailing a lifetime of abuse plays out overlaid with a child’s voice counting back from 35. It’s a random and disturbing tactic that — to date at least — has never turned up in a Liam Neeson action-fest directed by some French bloke.
Ramsay’s filmmaking is impeccable and diverse, running from the prosaic (Joe’s invasion of the brothel is powerfully depicted through multiple CCTV cameras) to the stunningly poetic (an underwater scene, a single shaft of light picking out air bubbles, is beautiful). She even takes big chances with shifts in tone: when Joe lies half-dead next to a bleeding bad guy, they start holding hands and mumble their way through Charlene’s Radio 2 favourite I’ve Never Been To Me. It’s mordantly funny — and feels like its from a different movie — but somehow works.
Joe needs a big actor and Phoenix shoulders his physicality and emotional complexity perfectly, suggesting, without dialogue, inner worlds of trauma without ever over-articulating it. He is ably matched by the often silent but striking Samsonov (this and Ratcatcher make Ramsay the Patron Saint Of Dead-Eyed Children), a perfect partner in pain for Joe.
It’s thankfully only 85 minutes long — kudos to editor Joe Bini for skilfully weaving so much together — because your nervous system couldn’t take much more. Aided by an upfront Jonny Greenwood score — it skips from Carpenter-esque electronica to screaming strings to mad drums — Ramsay has created an impressionistic assault on the senses, anxious, brooding and tightly coiled. It won’t fit all tastes and moods, but go with it and it is mightily impressive.
