I, Anna

Small film made for TV. Very well done. Charlotte is great at playing the disturbed. I felt a disturbance in the force.

Charlotte Rampling stars in I, Anna from 2012, directed by her son Barnaby Southcombe, who also wrote the screenplay.

It's the rather disjointed, noir-ish story of a woman, Anna (Rampling) and her relationship with a police detective Bernie Reid (Gabriel Byrne) who is searching for a killer. He becomes obsessed with Anna, who is attractive, sexy, divorced, with a daughter and granddaughter.

Charlotte Rampling has always been a unique actress. She's kind of a modern-day Lauren Bacall, androgynous, a wonderful actress who has allowed herself to age like a normal human being. Here she shows her sexuality and her beauty as the audience learns more and more about her.

The film skips around a lot and can be confusing at times. There is also a character, a young guy, who has no reason to be in the movie at all. Not only is his subplot not developed, we never find out how it ends.

Actually we don't find out how anything ends in this film. We think that someone is going to explain everything that went on but they don't.

If the photography is strange, it's also beautifully done. There's no question that Barnaby Southcombe has talent; it just needs to be developed a little more. With a better script and with all the fine actors in the film, this could have been a knockout.

Enjoyed this film. Thought it had an interesting take on London, showing us a different city to the one often seen in films. The stylised way it was shot might be too much for some people but I really liked it and felt it gave the film a great atmosphere. London looked wonderful.

Add to that some subtle and nuanced performances, particularly from Charlotte Rampling who really carries it. She was superb. There are some weaknesses and it won't be a film that appeals to everyone but if you do fancy watching something that requires you to think, is atmospheric, beautifully filmed and acted then I, Anna is worth watching.

This is a brilliantly crafted and paced film with a deep understanding of the Noir genre. It also contributes to the very small canon of films that depict mature female screen characters, rarely seen in the UK fictional media. The cinematography is acute and the lighting extraordinary. the music bold and moody noir. The denouement is not predictable, even though you think it might be, and it taps deeply into real emerging social issues in the UK - so even though noir is often style over content there is a real message to this film which works on you long after the viewing. But the world it creates is steady, fascinating and waiting for you....

Passably interesting drama concerning a woman, Anna (Charlotte Rampling), attempting to find another partner - she frequents singles gatherings - and a detective, Bernie (Gabriel Byrne), coming off a marriage separation, who pass each other at a ground-floor, elevator door of an apartment building in which a man has been battered to death overnight in one of the lodgings.

Bernie finds an umbrella, in the elevator, which Anna forgot about as she walked away. Instead of returning the item, Bernie, later on, traces her car license, establishes her address and sets about meeting her again - at one of those singles gatherings. All this while he's investigating - actually, getting his number two, Kevin (the always-terrific Eddie Marsan), to carry the load - said gruesome murder. A sub-plot about a teenager needing money to pay back dealers muddies the waters, so to speak, implicating him as a suspect in the murder of the man - who happens to be his father; and who is, incidentally, a most unpleasant character.

As the main plot unfolds, we see - in flashback - what Anna did at her previous singles thingy, the night before; which also begins to suggest she might be involved with the murder. But, how? Well, that's what Bernie frantically tries to find out. And which I'll leave you to enjoy at your leisure. The denouement, however, will give you pause to think about just how well you know - or ever can know - another person.

Rampling always performs well in heavy dramas; in this, she does better than other roles she's had. Byrne, over the years, just seems to get parts that meld perfectly with his laid back - some might call it lazy - style of acting. Indeed, Bernie appears to be almost sleep-walking much of the time. The stand-out, though, in this offering is Eddie Marsan who, unfortunately, is not used enough; always a pleasure to watch his performance. The rest of the cast is uniformly good.

As for the movie's director of this well-constructed movie, it's more than interesting to note that Barnaby Southcombe is actually Rampling's son. Nothing like keeping things in the family, I guess....

If ten is top prize, this gets five.

July 26, 2015.