The Souvenir

While I'm normally a fan of this kind of production, The Souvenir did very little to draw me in. I can't quite put my finger on it, but I didn't find it to be all that compelling or engaging. I wouldn't go out of my way to see this film if I were you.

Honor Swinton Byrne gives a profoundly subtle performance as an impressionable film student from a privileged upbringing who becomes romantically involved with an enigmatic, charming man who works for the British government. Tom Burke is a stark presence as the young woman's muse. They gradually become inseparable.

She is a thoughtful, sensitive person who soon finds herself navigating the pitfalls of his serpentine personality. The film proceeds at a very deliberate pace and is low-key to the point of being catatonic at times. The main criticism of this film is that its slow patches do go on for quite a bit. But out of this dry and methodical narrative eventually emerges a raw tension leading to a conclusion that is quite powerful.

Although this isn't quite the masterpiece that many reviews have made it out to be, I found it a worthwhile and subtly rewarding cinematic experience. Recommended to patient viewers.

Based on a true story: in the 1980s, Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) is a young British woman from a wealthy family and attending film school. She hooks up with Anthony (Tom Burke) who gradually takes advantage of her while trying to hide his serious personality flaws and habits.

Swinton Byrne does not, in any way, give a bad performance; in fact, it is rather good. But she lacks the depth and subtlety required to carry the main role in a two-hour movie. Adding to the trouble is Burke whose Tom is as bland as kale and as common as a condo construction project in downtown Toronto. This character is so lacking in charisma and charm that the film becomes an unintentional mystery as the viewer is left to wonder what Julie could possibly see in him with or without his shortcomings.

A sad irony is a scene in the film in which a film teacher explains that "Psycho" was a success as most scenes were normal, thus making its abnormal, frightening scenes stand out more. If only writer/director Joanna Hogg had followed the advice that she had written for one of her secondary characters. While the narrative of "The Souvenir" is consistent, it does not have any scene that stands out, making it long and dull.

A saving grace was the presence of Tilda Swinton (Swinton Byrne's real-life mother) portraying Julie's mother - emphasis on the word 'presence' which was missing in the primary performances. The film would have benefited with more scenes that included Swinton Senior.

"The Souvenir" is hyper-praised in the most baffling of ways by most critics. One of the praises is that it's based on a true story. Well, there are billions of true stories that don't make good films. Sadly, "The Souvenir" is one of them. - dbamateurcritic

I usually get in line to see a film that has anything to do with A24 film producers. Also 92/100 meta critic rating! Were they watching the same film! It was so boring and has nothing going for it. The characters are not interesting and the story is pointless. The critics are dead wrong about this one in my opinion. Avoid at all costs! It'll bore you to death, that coming from a guy who loves slow burn films.

Another film from Joanna Hogg brings another portrait of emotionally repressed, deeply unhappy members of the upper middle classes. To make things worse, the film relies on the over-familliar trope of the struggles of a would-be artist (the most boring of all subjects for an artist to consider), in this case a young woman contemporary to the director and with an apparent aspiration to become a Hogg-like film-maker. In places the film seems to acknowlege the inherent ridiculousness of its protagonist; but she recieves a sympathetic treatment. Hogg's style is frankly bizarre: the opposite of melodramatic, she prefers to show her characters going quielty about their business in the aftermath of unseen trauma. Even the wider structure of the film seems (deliberatley) artless, things happen (mostly offscreen) but there's no attempt to construct a plot in the orthodox sense, to manipulate the sequence of events to create a well-paced story. In general, I hate Hollywood blockbusters with their predictable narrative arcs, and love a good piece of miserablism; but the director has to meet me half-way. In fact, although I was profoundly irritated for the film's first half, I found the remainder more watchable than Hogg's two previous movies. But the basic subject (naive woman whose boyfriend is a heroin addict) was covered with far more wit and perception by Rachel Cusk in her first novel 'Saving Agnes', without the same level of underlying self-regard.