You Were Never Really Here is a 2018 drama about a traumatized veteran who tracks down missing girls for a living, though when a job spins out of control, his nightmares overtake him as a conspiracy is uncovered leading to what may be his death trip or his awakening.
Lynne Ramsay’s violent thriller, You Were Never Really Here, starts off on a good course, but fails to fully deliver. The idea behind the film of Joaquin Phoenix as a troubled enforcer who tracks down missing girls certainly had the potential, but it winds up falling short of expectations and leaves the audience thirsting for more.
We are introduced to Joe (Phoenix) as he cleans up the scene of one of his recent rescues. He is an enforcer of sorts who specializes in rescuing young girls who have been kidnapped and sold into sex trafficking. Joe suffers from PTSD and has flashbacks throughout the film of not only time in the military, but also some horrific cases he’d worked for the FBI. It has left Joe as a silent, mentally unstable man who lives with and cares for his mother (Judith Roberts). On top of this, Joe and his mother also suffered a traumatic upbringing from an abusive father.
Joe’s handler, John McCleary (John Doman), sets him up with a case to rescue Senator Albert Votto’s (Alex Mannette) daughter, Nina (Ekaterina Samsonov), from sex traffickers. Joe accepts the case before hitting the local hardware store to pick up his usual tools of a ball-peen hammer and duct tape. Afterwards he heads to the sex house and deals justice to everyone inside. After successfully rescuing Nina he takes her to a local hotel to wait for her father. While at the hotel, they see a news story about her father having committed suicide, and soon after two men storm the room and re-kidnap Nina. On top of this, someone also starts tracking down and killing those that Joe holds dearest. This sets him off on a rampage of vengeance into a conspiracy that is deeper than he ever expected.
I was very excited for this movie. I thought it was going to be a Drive-esc thriller with a plot that I could sink my teeth even deeper into. Everything starts off very promising as Ramsay does a great job in building a mysterious backstory for Joe. We get glimpses of his haunting past, which leads you to believe there will be a come-to-Jesus moment at the end. Unfortunately, we never get the clarity that was expected. I appreciate the fact that Ramsay was leaving part of the film up for the interpretation of the audience, but it felt too vague. I was yearning for a climax that showed us the true troubles of Joe’s past, but we’re left with pieces at the end of the day.
A highlight is undoubtedly Phoenix. He’s such a quality actor that it’s hard to think of a movie that he isn’t excellent in. Even Inherent Vice, which felt like a bit of a jumbled mess at times, still has a shining bright spot that is the performance of Phoenix. Where he excels here is showing us how deeply troubled his character is, and how he’s never found a way to cope with his past. His only ways to escape his demons are through his pills and through the violence he issues when rescuing these young girls. On a note of the violence, not that I needed to see him bashing people’s brains in with a hammer, but that also left something to be desired. During the climax in which Joe singlehandedly storms a house with his hammer, all we see is the aftermath of his destruction. Again, I didn’t need to see anything too graphic, but a little more action would’ve been nice. My guess is that Ramsay was trying to avoid violence and blood-lust being the focal point of the movie, and instead wanted more of a character study.
Joaquin Phoenix fans will want to check him out in his latest pic, but I can’t recommend shelling out a full movie ticket to see it in the theater. It’s a film with a great trailer that really drove my excitement, but never took advantage of what it had to offer.