On You Were Never Really Here

Lynne Ramsey’s forth feature is a violent, predominately aural experience with a powerful, close to silent performance by Joaquin Phoenix. The underlying theme is one of child abuse and the devastating affects this can have in later life. Phoenix’s Joe is, it is loosely hinted, a veteran of recent wars who has, indirectly caused the death of a young civilian. More vivid is the abuse Joe suffered as a child, disturbingly shown via the hands of his father, faceless but sadistic. These are the reasons for his current adult state; a hired gun who has found a niche brutally killing the abusers of children. The repeated sounds of a child counting connect Joe with Nina, a young girl he saves once from the hands of a paedophilic ring of government officials. When he comes to save her again he finds his own trauma of child abuse writ in the actions of this young girl who has herself become a violent murderer, albeit of those most deserving of death. Here, abused children become damaged adults. It is those who Joe kills (child abusers) and how he kills (with a hammer, the same tool used on him as a child) that prevents his actions from becoming unconscionable.

Although Ramsey’s film is wrought with violence that is overtly aggressive, we see very little in detail. It is the use of sound which makes this both an uncomfortable and dream like experience. Joe’s mental damage is highlighted through the layering of voices and the exaggerated background noises that intrude upon the audience and Joe’s thoughts. At other times the music is hypnotic and peaceful. It is on this latter theme that You Were Never Really Here ends. A note of hope as Nina and Joe, fresh from drinking milkshakes and a vision of suicide (another repeated image) decide it is a beautiful day.