Trauma

An unemployed loner (Firth) recovering from a road accident becomes obsessed with a murdered pop star and with the prospect that his wife, supposedly killed in the crash, might not be dead after all.

In recent months we have had two excellent British films released in our cinemas. Geoffrey Rush gave what could well be the performance of his life in "The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers" and "Lock Stock And Two Smoking Barrels" producer Matthew Vaughn made a fine impression with "Layer Cake", his directing debut. "Trauma" is a Warner-BBC co-production that is both confused and pretentious and it seems longer than it's running time. Director Marc Evans fails to generate any suspense and the twist in Richard Smith's screenplay when it comes is hardly worth waiting for. Some moody cinematography from John Mathieson and a good performance from Colin Firth offer a little compensation, but one can't help thinking that this should have been confined to the BBC's airwaves rather than our cinemas.

It sometimes gives masterpieces:of course "spellbound " comes to mind.But "Spellbound " was made at a time when screenplays were elaborate and there was no place for vagueness.

"Trauma" turns on the ambiguousness: nightmares,hallucinations, shrink consultation,medium,investigation,TV news,it's hard to find your way through this muddled plot.It borrows sometimes from "Jacob's ladder" ( the nightmare (?) in the hospital)but its conclusion,unlike Adrian Lyne's work, does not make much sense.

A man (Colin Firth,28 in the movie,actually 44 when the movie was made)has lost his wife in a road accident and he was at the wheel.At the same time ,a female pop star is murdered.The widower suffers from amnesia and when he tries to find back his past, it will be nothing that he expected of course...

As for Colin Firth,why don't you watch "another country" or "apartment zero" instead?

I can't remember being so disappointed by a film. I love psychological thrillers but this was just so pretentious and up its own ar*e that I found myself not giving a toss what happens to anyone in it (except Mena Suvari, naturally).

I guess the hope is with making such a film is that the viewer will, through repeated viewings, find more and more to enjoy in the film, but frankly I would resent the loss of 90 minutes of my life having to sit through it again. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe if I did watch it again, I would find more to enjoy but directors ought to consider making their films suitably enjoyable at the initial viewing that you would *want* to watch it again. As it was I found myself justifying why I ought to watch the last half of it.

What a wasted opportunity.

Not a horror movie, which I wasn't really expecting, but not a spooky psychological thriller, which I think it was supposed to be. What was it? confusing. This movie tried so hard to find its place, but just wandered around & around. I found myself using the repeat button to go back and see if there was something I had missed, to make sense of what followed. There were a few good scenes, a couple good jolts -and I do like Colin Firth - but the movie just couldn't find its rhythm and stay there. There *was* some good acting, but not enough to make me care about the characters. There *was* some dark atmosphere, but it wasn't sustained. There *was* some shock value in the end, but not enough. Can I have my 88 minutes back, please?

I watched this all the way through, though I cant pretend I liked it. The overwhelming impression of this movie was confusion. I had zero idea of what the hell was going on. All the effects of a shocker movie were there, the insects,the momentary glimpses of things undetermined, to raise the tension, the creepy caretaker, the muted colouring, the mutilated corpse, flashbacks, the almost abandoned building which was an ex hospital with, handily, a morgue in the basement ! etc etc. For me a movie must have entertainment value, there was none here, the story was nasty all the way through. Acting ? Colin Firth, Mena Suvari... first class as you would expect when you manage to acquire actors of their standing you want to put them in a better vehicle than this movie.