REVIEW: Room (2016)

Lenny Abrahamson has often had a fondness for outsiders (excepting his best film, What Richard Did, which focusses on an insider, albeit one who accidentally ousts himself) – indeed, to the level of fetish with his painful Frank. This has continued into his most mainstream film so far, Room, based on the novel by Emma Donoghue (here adapting her own book) itself in turn based on the Josef Fritzl case.

Ma (Brie Larson) and Jack (Jacob Tremblay) lived in Room, a small garden shed fitted as a domestic prison. Ma has been imprisoned in Room for eight years and Jack, who is five, was born there. The film charts their ability to cope and survive.

As off-putting as it is to consider a film, particularly one coming with all the bells and whistles of awards season marketing, based on so specific a case, in which there were real victims and real pain, Room largely manages to feel sincere and respectful. Donoghue and Abrahamson pursue their version through the eyes of a five-year old child who has no knowledge of the real horror of their situation. Any real abuse is seen by misdirection – seen through Jack’s perspective, we know what is going on even if Jack does not. Since the focus is so much on Jack, we can often forget that Ma (we find out her real name later in the film) is also a victim. Again, these scenes come through a degree of misdirection. When Ma, now Joy, comes home and back to her bedroom, untouched for eight years, Abrahamson knows to put the camera on her in this instance, bringing home sharply Joy’s own stolen years. It is a powerful little moment, done without show, but one that reminds us that Abrahamson does have his heart in the right place.

Even in one sequence in which the film slightly starts to lose its way, Abrahamson and Donoghue pull it back. In one extended sequence, Joy’s mother Nancy (Joan Allen) opens the house to a TV crew for an exclusive interview with Joy. The film takes pokes at the media, suggesting that they might be immoral scavengers after any kind of marketable human misery that might give the viewing public a little emotional kick (if not full-on freak show) to mull on over with their dinner. The thought is inescapable: the film itself could be tarred by its own brush. However, the film addresses instead the responses of those disinterested observers, which are often as damaging and traumatic as any kind of media intrusion. The interviewer chastises Joy for keeping Jack with her, suggesting that a better parent would have convinced their captor (Old Nick, played by Sean Bridgers as a very sad and lost human rather than as a monster) to anonymously leave the child in care where it could have a normal life. This, though a morally valid argument, is a cruel and coldly logical view of the situation and is not one that Joy ever considered. What the film is then calling for is not so much a renewed attempt to understand the victims of abuse, but merely that we remain compassionate and accepting. It is, again, a suggestion that the film is not just a shocking, headline grabbing cash-in, but one that actually addresses its subject matter in a constructive and positive way.

The performances are fantastic – Larson and Trembley keep the film feeling human rather than grandstanding. Even the film’s biggest moment – Jack in the back of the police car – is, although pure trailer fodder, sincerely focussed on the characters and the performances. Room feels compassionate as much for their performances as for Abrahamson’s distanced and empathic camera. Room’s greatest success is that it feels like a caring and human film for the majority of its running time, rather than a potentially damaging cash-in. It is a film about a mother’s love and the power and resilience of the human spirit, though one wonders why a version of the Fritzl case was such a necessary angle to address these fairly common themes, if indeed these themes were the primary motivations for writing the book and making the film. That said, Room is a film about the victims, preferring scenes of strength, weakness and recovery over empty histrionics. If one can’t fathom why anyone would make a film like this, it is equally difficult to fathom what cast and what filmmakers could have done it better.

REVIEW: Frank (2014)

Is it easier to make a ‘fun’ film than a dark and serious one? And if a filmmaker is good at making a particular type of film, is it a bad thing for them to try something new, to take a risk and make something totally unlike anything that they have done before. As with Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master – or, at least, as it appears – is the weight of expectation sometimes just too much for a working filmmaker to bear? In my review of What Richard Did, I wrote that Lenny Abrahamson was “Ireland’s most important living filmmaker.” A big statement and, on balance, a deeply unhelpful one – isn’t it better after all to have a range of interesting voices than a single “most important” one? Whether Abrahamson was afraid of being typecast – I suppose directors can be typecast too – as the director of low budget dark dramas or he just wanted to have fun, the result is Frank – one of this year’s most pointless films.

Jon (Domhnall Gleeson) is trying to get into music but he doesn’t really have all that much talent. He ends up joining a band, the unpronounceable Soronprfbs, headed by Frank – a damaged man in a giant papier-mâché head (played by Michael Fassbender). No one else in the band (including Maggie Gyllenhaal, Scoot McNairy, François Civil and Carla Azar) likes Jon very much. They go to Ireland and live in a remote cabin for almost a year in order to record an album. Jon films the process on his phone and his videos become popular on Youtube, which thrusts the band into the limelight. But are they ready for it?

Some have said that Frank is the kind of film that half the audience will love and the other half will hate, though that is overly simplistic. Some certainly seem to love it and others will certainly hate it, but my own reaction was merely initial disappointment followed by boredom. For me, it was deeply uninteresting, it wasn’t funny or engaging. It is one of those heavily ironic films that seem to enjoy their own company – not unlike Wes Anderson films – and smugly disregard the audience, secure in the knowledge that someone somewhere will love it and be vocal enough about it to make it a cult film. Frank is one of those films that will be trendy and might even be talked about in almost religious terms twenty years from now – like The Big Lebowski is today. All the naysayers who saw it when it came out and who didn’t get it will be stuck with some kind of old conservative label – their reviews quoted ironically in the same way that Pauline Kael’s negative review of Star Wars is now a T-shirt. All of that sounds bitter so suffice it to say that Frank is one of those films that has nothing much to say about anything, doesn’t go anywhere interesting and doesn’t bother to make you care.

Those who will love Frank have probably already made up their minds about going to see it, though I wonder if Lenny Abrahamson was the deciding factor for many of them. It is probably just as well because there is very little of what made Abrahamson’s previous work so good. There are no interesting characters. The comedy falls flat and the drama is only semi-successful at the very end of the film, in which the re-formed Sonorprfbs play one last song as Jon looks on. It is a decent conclusion to a film that spent the previous ninety minutes wondering around, looking for an idea and a point. Ultimately, the film is about how we tend to deify artists, how fandom (and social media) can exaggerate aspects of an artist’s life and work beyond all proportion – Kurt Cobain is a good example as is (I suppose) calling Lenny Abrahamson “Ireland’s most important living filmmaker.” So Frank, then, is an intentionally poor film designed to make Abrahamson’s life a little easier. Maybe. Probably not. But Frank leaves you with very little else to think about.

For me, music films don’t tend to work. You probably have to be in a band or at least have some kind of ambition in that direction to fully appreciate Almost Famous (its just OK) or that other terrible film now gaining a cult following (these days films don’t wait twenty years to become rediscovered gems) Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. Frank has nothing interesting in it and it isn’t as funny or as emotionally involving as it might think it is – assuming any thought went into it whatsoever. Taken as a whole, it is just gibberish, unfocused and annoying. It isn’t a film I hate, it’s just one that did absolutely nothing for me. Which is a pity because I really like Lenny Abrahamson’s other films – whether they are millstones or not.

REVIEW: What Richard Did (2012)

What Richard Did is the third feature film by director Lenny Abrahamson and his first since the phenomenal Garage made Abrahamson an international name in 2007. He has taken his time choosing his next film and with What Richard Did we get another insight into modern Ireland that is both universal and recognisably local.

Richard (Jack Reynor) is a successful rugby player who would seem to have the world in the palm of his hand. He is planning to go into rugby professionally, but also continue his studies at the same time. He is very popular and is surrounded by mates and people who look up to him, particularly Stephen and Cian (Gavin Drea and Fionn Walton). He starts a romance with Lara (Roisin Murphy) and looks set to enjoy a long, uncomplicated summer. However, his drunken actions during a brawl outside a house party one night might just ruin his life.

Abrahamson imbues the film with a very real sense of sympathy for Richard, just as he did with the social outcasts in Adam and Paul and Garage. Though the middle class milieu is totally different from those of his previous two films, Abrahamson nevertheless displays the same ability to lift the lid on a particular group of people and reveal the psychology beneath. Richard is a popular guy, but Abrahamson and Reynor present him as an ambiguous character from the very beginning. We often see Richard staring enigmatically at a sunset or at some scenery, the observational style and the ambiguity of the film’s title suggesting that there is a lot going on underneath the surface that Richard presents. When he is alone, Richard is subdued, almost immobile, as if constrained by some deep dissatisfaction or fear.

This may seem premature as all of this occurs before the event, midway through the film, which will alter Richard’s life forever. However, Abrahamson is more interested in his character than he is in conventional plotting and, as a result, it is clear that there is something mildly wrong with Richard before the unfortunate incident. This feature of What Richard Did is worth emphasising as it is emblematic of the film’s ability to suggest almost as much as it reveals, making it a film full of allusive possibilities. Indeed, the previous relationship between Richard and his eventual victim remains unclear throughout the film. It seems that there is some kind of a past between them but the film never bogs itself down in redundant specifics, preferring a richness of possibilities. As a result, What Richard Did is the kind of film that ought to be endlessly talked about.

However, Abrahamson, for all his allusive illusiveness, has not made a film full of ciphers. Most of the actors in the film are very good and the film has a very Cassavetes-feel to it, seeming semi-improvised and workshopped. Jack Reynor is fantastic, easily carrying the film with a performance that is keenly aware of both Richard’s sheer confidence and extroversion and his less definable, darker qualities. Of the adults, Richard’s father Peter (Lars Mikkelsen) is the most interesting, producing a fine study of ineffectual horror. The majority of the young actors are very good at presumably just being themselves with Sam Keeley and Patrick Gibson. Richard will eventually have a long awaited breakdown and Reynor’s performance and Abrahamson’s eye for harrowing realism make the scene a key moment.

Of course, the film will end somewhat inconclusively, but the drama that Abrahamson wrings from the film’s situation is utterly fascinating. The film’s final ten minutes are remarkable for the sheer volume of ideas and nuances that are presented. Defiant, having finally made a decision that he feels is the right one, Richard and Lara spend one last bittersweet night together. However, in the cold light of the morning, Richard has a change of heart and the romance of the night before is tarnished. All of this is conveyed practically without words and is a powerfully evocative depiction of indecision, quilt and fear. Similarly, the film’s final shot is a deeply effective conclusion albeit one without many answers.

Beneath the surface of What Richard Did, an ostensibly straightforward drama about guilt and the loss of innocence, is a complexity that defies easy answers and categories. Similarly, the story is told with a subtly that is only matched by some of the performances making the film as thematically rich as it is enthralling. To say too much about the film is to give too much away so suffice it to say that What Richard Did is the second great film from Ireland’s most important living filmmaker.

What Richard Did will be playing at the QFT from Friday 14th Dec to Thursday 20th Dec.

Also on: http://www.culturenorthernireland.org/article/5404/film-review-what-richard-did