You Were Never Really Here (2017)

Cast includes:
CHARACTER	ACTOR/ACTRESS	RATING
Joe	Joaquin Phoenix	½
Nina Votto	Ekaterina Samsonov	½
Senator Albert Votto	Alex Manette
John McCleary	John Doman
Joe's Mother	Judith Roberts
Governor Williams	Alessandro Nivola
Angel	Frank Pando

Review

The provocative subject matter depicted here (human trafficking and child prostitution) lays the basis for an explosive movie, but writer/director Lynne Ramsay is not really interested in an academic or moral discussion. She goes for a visceral approach, utilizing everything that the film medium has to offer. She's like a virtuoso at play, and through superb camera-work, editing, music – and not least – shifts in tempo, she makes her piece enthralling in an almost Hitchcockian manner. Aided by a typically brave, raw performance by Joaquin Phoenix, You Were Never Really Here crawls under your skin and appeals to your emotions before your thoughts. It's not that the film necessarily makes you understand Joe and Nina, or any of the other characters for that matter, but it guides you through a hidden trap door to their almost unintelligible world. And the best part is that Ramsay doesn't feel sorry for or pass her judgement on Joe or Nina, she simply lets them co-exist with us. And that's always the best way forward, in my opinion.