Silver Haze

Hospital nurse Franky (Vicky Knight) is covered with burn scars from a fire 15 years ago when she was a child. She meets troubled patient Florence (Esme Creed-Miles) who tried to commit suicide. She suspects her mother's friend having set the fire and it continues to haunt her.

This is an intriguing character. I wasn't sure if the scars are real. I figured that a low budget indie would have difficulty doing big-time prosthetics. She's a very compelling actress with a completely unique look. The lower budget does have one drawback. This is setting up for a flashback reveal of the fire during most of the movie. Of course, there is no way for them to film a full-blown bar fire on a limited budget. The movie misses not having that scene.

"Franky" (Vicky Knight) is a nurse who can't shake the effects of a conflagration fifteen years earlier that left her slightly scarred physically but more so emotionally. Partly, that's because she reckons that her mum's pal "Jane" was responsible - but there's no proof. Anyway, unable to hold down any kind of meaningful relationship she cruises through life until she encounters "Florence" (Esme Creed-Miles). This is a bit of a bolt from the blue for her as she falls completely and the two abscond. Their time together is turbulent at times, but it does give them the opportunity to plot revenge. Is that what "Franky" really wants though? Has she just become so hard-wired that she can't learn to move on? Things begin to recalibrate when she discovers that her beloved nan "Alice" (Angela Bruce) has cancer and rather predictably, the histrionics all calm down and the story rather loses it's spark. Aside from a rather odious scene on a bus - which may well be based on true events in London - the rest of this is an unremarkable love story (it's in no way a romance) that follows a bunch of unlikable characters about whom I couldn't care less after about twenty minutes of stereotypical and foul-mouthed characterisations. The acting is fairly visceral, to be fair, but it's presented in pseudo-documentary style some of the time then in a more straightforward form of drama at others with neither really engaging. It's contrived coming of age stuff that's neither original nor vital, sorry.

Hospital nurse Franky (Vicky Knight) is covered with burn scars from a fire 15 years ago when she was a child. She meets troubled patient Florence (Esme Creed-Miles) who tried to commit suicide. She suspects her mother's friend having set the fire and it continues to haunt her.

The film is filmed in the style of 'fly on the wall', or graphic documentary style. And given the subject matter and stated storyline, that's not the best way to do it.

It presents southern English people as common, uneducated, ungracious people with no manners or courtesy and not even able to speak English properly. That for me takes away form the central story and starts to take on the role of a social commentary on the way people live in Britain.

In the first half of the film there are only 2 references to a fire, so rather than Frankie's search for the truth of what happened to her, the first half of the film is nothing but anti-social behaviour, swearing, arguments and graphic, but completely unnecessary lesbian sex.

I'm sitting here at the half way stage still waiting for the story to start and for someone to be able to speak English.

I've given it a 2 and that's more than it's worth.

This is Director Sacha Polak and lead actress Vicky Knight second film after 2019's Dirty God, about a young mother who disfigured after an acid attack. Both starring Vicky Knight, herself suffering bad burns when she was a child. Silver Haze seems to be the most based on her life, it also has her own real life family playing her on screen family (her real life young sister, Charlotte is especially good as her younger sister in this).

This is Vicky's film all the way, and she brings it as Franky. Esmé Creed-Miles (Samantha Morton is her mum) is really solid as Franky's troubled girlfriend. She's not always most likeable of characters and this film has quite a few. It's not a easy watch, the really closed in cinematography also adds to tension.

I hope Vicky Knight sticks to acting and maybe goes off and does something out her comfort zone. She's got a nice presence on screen. Creed-Miles although nowhere near the actress her mother was at her age (Morton was one of best acting talents of her generation) just give Florence a likeability.

I sadly doubt the film will get much traction and that be a shame. I do think it's better then it's IMDB rating right now (6.2 of right now).

It might seem reductive, considering that this is a deeply personal piece of filmmaking but there are shades in here of Clio Bernard, Andrea Arnold, Lynne Ramsay, Alan Clarke (who I think is the most direct companion to this work, from the at-time guttural sensitivity), with other works I'm reminded of including Naked, Mona Lisa, and Nil by Mouth.

This is a film that is difficult viewing for those that find themselves not necessarily refracted in the characters, but in the dynamics, tone, and mood, which can at times feel overwhelming.

The palliative care sequences were particularly gut-wrenching for me, and handled carefully.

The performances are almost feverish, as if dictated by, or caught in, circumstance,-and this does seem like a definitively unique contribution to filmmaking, that will over time, I imagine, be viewed with the same eyes as those that look back on a work like Nil by Mouth.

It seems slightly pointless to try to describe the story as a way into the film, since what this really feels like is delving headfirst into a study of complex dynamics that I don't think someone could have directed had they not gone through them.

There is a deep austerity to filmmaking rarely being done like this anymore.