You Were Never Really Here
2017
***
Director: Lynne Ramsey
Cast: Joaquin Phoenix, Ekaterina Samsonov, Alex Manette, John Doman, Judith Roberts
Joe is a traumatised war veteran who is specialised in tracking down sex trafficked teenagers and punishing their captors. A state senator hires him to find his daughter, but Joe is about to discover that there are bigger things at play. Lynne Ramsey's fourth feature was scripted by Jonathan Ames from his own novel. The set-up sounds like a classic paranoia thriller, but in practice this is an introspective study of an unhinged person. Joaquin Phoenix gives a very compelling performance, but Joe's story is never as gripping as you would hope and often difficult to watch, but not for the right reason.
