Complete Unknown - Cambio d'identità

Tom played by Michael Shannon is having one of those 'crisis' moments in his life. Whilst on the surface he has all the trappings of success, under the wafer thin surface he is falling apart and losing those things that he had once used to define his very existence.

Then, at a dinner party, a work colleague brings a new 'friend', this is Alice (Rachel Weisz) and immediately Tom recognises her, only he does not remember any 'Alice'. Thus begins a night of revelations and stories at odds with normally acquired experiences. It is the story of one person who has escaped through reinvention and one who craves escape but is shackled by convention.

This is an indie type film but has a high quality production and with the cast it boasts is not short on good performances. The real strength here is the story itself and so that makes this one of those films where one viewing may be enough. That said it is still more than worth seeing even if it is just that once.

This film is a drama, not so much a mystery, and it has an actual storyline, with characters who can grow and learn while dealing with life-changing decisions.

It is not boring, unless the viewer needs either a lot of exposition or explosions. Without going into spoilers, I can say that there are some seemingly implausible aspects, but nothing in the film is actually impossible to believe.

As already stated, the characters grow and change, and deal with decisions that will impact their lives, and I was pleasantly surprised with the ending, as it was unexpectedly uplifting.

What can I say about this film? It was complete annoyance, complete irritation, complete delusion, completely nonsense, complete dementia and a complete waste of time. The only character in the film with any sense was the part played by Condola Rashad. The money spent on the making of this film should have been used to feed the poor.

Maybe I was in the mood for it, but I found this little movie intriguing. It's certainly different. I didn't read anything too profound into it; I just think it was an interesting story beautifully played.

It seems to have bored some people stiff and the critical response according to Wikipedia was mixed to negative - I guess they weren't in the mood for it.

Alice (Rachel Weisz), a woman who disappeared years before, returns and meets her old boyfriend Tom (Michael Shannon). We learn that she has changed identities and occupations many times, acquiring new skills and friends, only to suddenly leave them all behind to adopt a totally new identity.

This sort of thing usually has sinister undertones often involving serial killers and people held captive in cellars, but here there is nothing evil at all, only feelings of sadness for a lost relationship and Tom's sense of purposelessness in his life.

There are a few more layers to it, and Alice's self indulgent philosophy is questioned.

There is one telling sequence when Alice and Tom help an older couple played by Danny Glover and Kathy Bates. Tom is invited into Alice's world of identity changing almost like in theatre sports where the players are given a character and then have to improvise like crazy; it unlocks something repressed in Tom.

As Alice's story unfolds I thought of that line in Kurt Vonnegut's "Mother Night" - "You must be careful what you pretend to be, because in the end you are what you pretend to be".

The film has a seductive mood aided by an atmospheric score and doesn't outstay its welcome. I won't spoil the ending, but it felt right.

I'm glad I didn't read the critics first - "Complete Unknown" was a complete surprise.

Alice (Rachel Weisz) re-enters Tom's (Michael Shannon) life after disappearing for fifteen years. Only, she's hard to identify because of the multiple personalities she has assumed in those years. She remains the titular heroine of Complete Unknown, and she is a stranger to the end of this complicated and accomplished indie.

Don't come to this absorbing adventure seeking Walter Mitty thrills: Alice subtly changes her personal shape and doesn't burden us with cheap melodrama or even sexual romance. Rather the emphasis is on discovery: As Tom peels back the layers of her personalities and discovers her, he is drawn into discovery of himself and his own unfulfilled life. Although she is the center of the exploration, he is close behind, like all of us afraid to look inside ourselves to see the multiple possibilities for life change.

Complete Unknown exposes the yearning we may all have to live other lives. In Alice's case, she may have lived as a magician's assistant and a researcher, and more in between. But actually whatever roles she has taken, she cannot efface her core self as her return to observe her parents and see Tom again shows.

In a bizarre occurrence on the street, Tom helps a fallen old lady (Kathy Bates) by pretending to be an osteopath, rather enjoying how Alice has roped him into to assuming the new role. At this point, director Joshua Marston shifts from the mystery of Alice's identity to the mystery of who Tom is or wants to be.

He becomes the one whose identity we also speculate about. Whether or not he decides to leave his unfulfilled job to go with his wife to California for her professional study opportunity becomes just as intriguing as Alice's many lives. The film is figuratively blunt about the power of changing one's life, for good or ill.

Marston has masterfully made us question our own identities and our use of talents and pursuit of other lives than the ones we have stuck ourselves in. By extension, Complete Unknown may be a discourse on the ability of art such as movies to take us into lives heretofore unavailable to us.

Anyway, this is a film for thinking people who may want to speculate on the lives they could have and the life they have.