Eu, Anna

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.

I was tempted to give this 10/10 simply to compensate for the idiots who gave this film 1 and 2 out of 10. I didn't ultimately but it gives me the sh*ts when I see people unfairly rating down a film. With an average 6/10 I might not have watched this - and it was a genuinely decent film. The story is coherent and the plot competent. The way in which the central event of the film is slowly revealed is sophisticated and worked well. Both Charlotte Rampling and Gabriel Byrne are top rate leading actors and both do a good job. Rampling's performance was particularly convincing. Casting mature actors in these lead roles (without making a big thing about it) was quite believable and worked really well. The setting, the cinematography, the late-night London insomniac noir all create a compelling atmosphere. It's a genre film and, as such, isn't fabulously original, but is nonetheless well worth watching.

Great atmospherics. A good take on aging and isolation. Rampling is superb as an older-middle aged, lonely divorcé entering the dating scene. Byrne fantastic as the flawed, troubled detective, trying to track down the killer of a sleazy drug dealer.

My "but" here is Rampling's character Anna. She has a back story, to be sure. Her use of public pay phones -- where would you even find them even in London of eight years ago? -- hints at this. So does the never-seen bedroom in her apartment. So far, so good. But the reveal is a five-second shot in a police station, which I almost missed if I had not paused and gone back a minute or two. And the eventual expansion of that bit of information in the last 15 minutes of the movie is ambiguous at best.

Byrne's detective is not given much of a story either. He has separated from his wife and living in a central London hotel -- kind of expensive for his presumed salary, I think -- but that's all we know. The plot involving the first suspect, a 15-year old step son of the victim, seems a bit tacked on.

That said, the directing and cinematography is haunting. London's brutalist Barbican development looks cold and mildly sinister. (Americans may think it is a low income housing project but the residents are actually middle class, professional types).

One of the spookiest scenes: Anna is in the ladies room at the Hilton, where the speed dating takes place. She encounters a much older woman, perhaps in her 70s, over dressed, too much makeup, and far too old for the crowd outside, who encourages Anna to "go for it." Just 30 seconds of the movie but I keep thinking, what's HER story? Is she even real? Restroom advice is always pretty bad in movies -- think of the Shining and Jack Nicholson' chat with the bartender -- but this proves to be a pivotal point in the film.

So great acting. Excellent directing. This movie would warrant a nine on my star-scale, were it not for the script.

There are so many strands that make up the story, and very little to connect them together. But it is well worth watching a second (or more) time just to get the whole picture (!)

Charlotte Rampling is so good, so convincing as the middle-aged woman, now separated and living with a daughter and grandchild. But there is a past incident, very important to what else is happening, briefly referred to a couple of times that isn't really explained - perhaps a tragedy involving another child?

Every now and then, there is a flashback with Anna now wearing a bright red dress. That's a signal to us to change our focus and concentrate and try to join the scenes together.

Gabriel Byrne is the cop who becomes attracted (no surprise there!) to Anna. A very good performance.

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.