A Beautiful Day - You Were Never Really Here

Joe (Joaquin Phoenix) is troubled living in New York City caring for his elderly mother and asphyxiating himself for comfort from a troubling past. He is hired to recover State Senator Albert Votto's runaway young daughter Nina from an underaged girls brothel. He buys a hammer and smashes his way through his crusade. He saves Nina but are confronted by murderous corrupt cops. It's the tip of a dangerous conspiracy leading all the way to the governor's mansion.

The first thirty minutes is a bit rough. It's an artsy meandering slow disjointed slice of life into Joe. I get it but it could be clearer. It does give a feel for the guy. It would be great to have a more complete flashback to his military or policing days instead of short flashes of everything. Once he gets hammering, the movie goes like a freight train with Joaquin driving hard. He delivers a great performance as usual. There is a shock ending which I don't like. Indies like to punctuate the end of their movies with a gunshot. It's a bit cheap and feels amateurish. Overall, there are some great work with a few flaws.

I saw mixed reviews for You Were Never Really Here and it made me put off watching this film for 2 years. That was a mistake to say the least. YWNRH is a fantastically shot, gripping stray away from your typical blockbuster crime drama. While this movie isn't perfect, most negative reviews I've seen for this movie are nonsense. This movie is more than worth the hour and a half runtime regardless of whether or not you're typically drawn to the genre. Without spoilers, this review will tell you what you can expect, give you pros and cons, and debunk the faulty overwhelmingly negative reviews some people gave it.

Don't believe the reviews saying there is a "nonexistent, boring plot". The people who think that are the people who need a plot spoon fed to them with in your face exposition and unrealistic, unnecessary character dialogue so they can follow along without having to pay attention. Not only is the plot very clear, it's also very well written. While I'm not sure I would call this movie a thriller, it is a gripping, gritty, crime drama. The plot, despite not being battered into the front of your brain, is straightforward and easy to follow. A man suffering from several traumatic life experiences bides his time finding, and avenging missing girls in an attempt to find peace within himself. Initially, you are left in the dark regarding the main character. His character is developed throughout the story via fragmented displays of flashbacks chopping up his daily life. Through this you simultaneously gather information regarding his daily life, his occupation, his past, and his motives. I believe the way these flashbacks are used are why some people incorrectly believe there is a weak or incomplete plot, but to be frank they couldn't be more wrong.

The use of flashbacks in this movie is not only masterful, but incredibly unique. They are not given to the viewer in their entirety, and they are not meant to give us the entire picture on Joaquin Phoenix's background. They give you enough to understand him, but serve to convey a more important point. The use of these choppy, fragmented flashbacks seen from the main characters perspective convey the hardships of daily life for someone suffering from traumatic experiences. Constantly being reminded of something they'd like to forget, but can't. The seamless and uncontrollable drift from present to the past triggered by random occurrences encountered in day to day life that takes a toll on a person. The director did a phenomenal job conveying this with her technique, while also creating a complete character.

This film is also incredibly well shot. While I'm sure someone could reference several influences this movie draws from I was taken aback at how unique each scene is in how it is shot. This movie strays from the norm and does it extremely well. This individuality not only creates very powerful, gripping, exciting scenes, but makes it easy to focus on less exciting, build up scenes as well. If only based on cinematography I would give this film a 10/10.

While the pros of this movies far outweigh the cons, no movie is perfect. One critique I have is that some of the audio during Joaquin's flashbacks is so quiet I would've completely missed it had I had the subtitles off. Because, as I referenced earlier, the flashbacks are incredibly fragmented each second really counts when establishing the main characters background. Without subtitles, while the quiet, layered audio creates a nice effect to describe the feeling in the main characters head, you lose some relatively important exposition to truly help you understand his past. It's not major and doesn't take away from anything, but it's a critique nonetheless. Same goes for dialogue in a few important character interactions. You really can't fall asleep for a second during this movie if you want to get every detail. I had to rewind another scene that wasn't a flashback just because I missed someone's name. Again, not a deal breaker, doesn't change the plot, but would slightly change your understanding if you missed it.

Overall I give this movie somewhere between a 7/8 out of ten. The only thing holding it back from a 8/9 or a 9/10 was a few minor plot holes at the end. Nothing major, especially when compared to the gargantuan plotholes most Hollywood blockbusters ignore these days, but I'm nitpicky and watch too much CinemaSins on YouTube. Great movie I would highly recommend to anyone.

Yes I am aware that many thought this film was slow. However, it the slow and thoughtful burn of this film that makes it so unique and well done. It is, overall, a story about trauma and how this trauma has afflicted the protagonist. This is what trauma looks like. I already loved it but could further appreciate it after viewing a video by screened titled " How to Show Trauma" Just watch this video and then decide for yourself. Everything about this film was very much intentional and for good reason.

I'm still processing this. The comparisons to "Taxi Driver" are fair: the performances, the director's vision and exectution, the understated script..... those are some of the similarities. The major differences, for me include the depth to which the protagonist's trauma is not played out for us to view as observers, but drip-fed in increasing doses, often from a first-person perspective, which in my watching felt more like we were experiencing Joe's trauma with him, rather than seeing it played out for us. The film also has a lot of relevance to current discussions of modern masculinity, and here the gendering of social roles is presented very much more as a question than a statement.

If you prefer to finish watching a film with your friends and be able to agree pretty much without discussion on what it was about, then I suspect you might find this film pretentious or light on plot. If you're the type who enjoys discovering what your friends think they just saw, and don't mind spending a lot the movie time watching Joaquin Phoenix' face doing some really admirable acting, then this film might be as worthwhile for you as it was for me.

I'm a huge fan of art films. This film is definitely inspired by taxi driver and that's one of the reasons why it caught my attention as I love that movie, but this film is a huge let down. It's not good. The acting is 10/10, the cinematography and camerawork is 10/10, but the plot is horrible and boring. Take blade runner 2049's slow (but awesome) pacing and slow it down, throw in an uninteresting predictable repetitive recycled plot we've seen a billion times which could have been told within 20 minutes, give the main character psychological traumatic issues and show us random crap that's going on in his mind, and you have this movie. It brings nothing new to the table and is done in a way that simply bores you. I love dramas, I know this movie is one, an art drama film, but there Wonder, no suspense, no clever conversations, no anything really. I felt like I was watching a long video demonstrating Joaquin Phoenix's phenomenal acting.

In a nutshell this film is a drama with your typical basic story line with phenomenal acting that you will forget within a couple of days. I can only recommend it if love movies with beautiful cinematography and are a huge fan of Joaquin Phoenix, but if you're looking for an original unforgettable drama, a crime revenge film, or whatever else you were expecting, I recommend staying away from this.