I finally got to see this film last night at LFF in London, and it has been more than worth the wait.
The moments between relative lucidity and mental anguish of William Keane are forcefully explored and successfully displayed by the joint work of Lodge Kerrigan's in-yer-face directing coupled with Damian Lewis' profoundly poignant interpretation of a man clinging precariously on the edge of some kind of sanity and not always succeeding as he knows he should.
I have never encountered such a long period of total and absolute quiet at the end of the film as I did at the end of Keane: the collective breath-holding was incredible.
Chilling, yet strangely warm, this film left me with more questions than answers and an empathy towards the character and the subject of mental illness as a whole than I have ever experienced. It simply has never been something I have concerned myself with. If this is what Lodge Kerrigan set out to achieve, he has more than accomplished it to my mind.
An important film that is a tour-de-force for both Lodge Kerrigan's tight direction and Damian Lewis' craft as an actor.
Go see it if you can. Lobby your local cinema to show it if necessary, but see it.
