As the credits begin to roll on Lynne Ramsey's visceral and intense film, I felt an odd feeling of relief that Joaquin Phoenix did not win an Oscar for playing Johnny Cash. In the years since, Phoenix has eschewed the mainstream and become a full-blown movie-star weirdo. His raw performance in You Were Never Really Here isn't just told his line-readings but also his back muscles, feet, scars and posture. A role for the classical leading man, this is not.
Ramsey's first film since 2011 is a singular assault. It's quite possible that you hated We Need to Talk About Kevin, which took the parental horrors of Lionel Shriver's novel and intellectualised them at a remove. But Ramsey has a knack for distance, creating a particular style of alienation that works perfectly for the story of a traumatized hired-gun...
Phoenix is Joe, a fairly silent hitman who specialises in rescuing trafficked young girls. His current client is a New York Senator up for re-election, distraught at the disappearance of his daughter Nina but determined to keep a potentially horrendous story out of the news. After all: the optics.
You Were Never Here has the setup of a slick thriller but it's made with an auteur's eye. The conventional hired gun plot is but one aspect. This film is an extreme close up of a life built by violence, where mercilessness is the day job. The characters are repeatedly despicable, and why should we expect them to be anything else?
In the seven years since We Need to Talk About Kevin, Ramsey has found room for some parental warmth. Character actress Judith Roberts is the film's heart as Joe's mother, frail and goofy, who brings out the tenderness in her son which appears to exist beneath the surface. This and the brilliant use of Charlene's "Never Been to Me," might mean that Ramsey has softened... while our hero shoots, stabs and bludgeons his way into our hearts.
The ordinary viewer isn't going to just stumble upon You Were Never Really Here. It's not what you'd call an enjoyable film. It's nihilistic, bleak, cruel and disgusting. It might be a commentary on the cycles of abuse. Or it might be nothing more than an assault by Ramsey's own visual aesthetic. Either way, it lingers.
Oscar chances: At this point in his career, he doesn't need it and Lynne Ramsey doesn't either. Still... it would be nice.
Overall: This is difficult filmmaking. You have to choose to see it. I think you should. B+