The Souvenir

Spoiler alert.

A lost bored romantic intellectual befriends an aspiring filmmaker who's too blind to be disenchanted 'til they're both very much in love.

She's determined yet shy (Honor Swinton Byrne as Julie), slowly learning to articulate her ideas, and he's in command of thoughtful expressions (Tom Burke as Anthony), which amusingly comment on the artsy world.

He sees something light in her innocent charm which his stilted life is sorely missing, and she enjoys the interactive ideas they warmly share without cost or confrontation.

Early on.

Her first love, her first scandal, her first apartment, her first immersion.

You can interpret the film in different ways but in the beginning their attachment seems genuine.

She genuinely loves him anyways, even after his addiction's revealed.

And the souvenir he provides her with near the end suggests he had genuine feelings too, he wasn't just taking advantage of the free ride, even if he lost control of his reason, and succumbed to blunt bland self-destruction.

Is The Souvenir Joanna Hogg's début film?

If so it's remarkably farsighted.

It's light, charismatic, thoughtful, a bit wild, blending comedic elegance with tragic realization, as if the mind's a random orchestration sweetly plucked in wondrous symphony.

With agile variation.

Composing relevance, nonsense, creeds.

'Til there's something else to do, the film presents wide open-minded invention.

You aren't tethered to specific patterns and expectations even as Anthony gets worse, it's much more freespirited, less checked and balanced like a craze, confident enough to try something novel, yet reliable as if there's something to do.

Some of the scenes, some of the editing, are/is borderline genius.

There were moments when I was close to approaching acritical ecstasy, but the lines weren't as mind-blowing as I instinctively hoped they would be.

The form is though, and many others likely found the content more compelling than I did, who am I anyways?, to even approach something like that in your first film is incredible, and no doubt a brilliant sign for the future.

I imagined Joanna Hogg making brilliant period pieces in the future in fact, rustling up some British history to discursively explore, overflowing with character and subtlety, making points that elucidate tremors.

I keep thinking this is how Jane Austen got started, 19th century style.

Who makes a film like this as a début?

Captivating.

Unique.

Thoughtful and precocious.

Tantalizingly distressed.