You Were Never Really Here
Short description
Joe is a war veteran living in New York who earns his living tracking down missing girls, often freeing them from sexual exploitation. He has no friends or lovers, and his violent past returns to him in flashbacks and nightmares. When a politician hires him to find his abducted teenage daughter, Nina, Joe locates her, but the rescue leads him into a network of corruption and vengeance far larger than a single kidnapping.
Lynne Ramsay directed and wrote the screenplay, working from Jonathan Ames's novel. It is her fourth feature, following Ratcatcher, Morvern Callar and We Need to Talk About Kevin, and it came before Die My Love. Rebecca O'Brien, Pascal Caucheteux and Ramsay produced. Joaquin Phoenix plays Joe, with Ekaterina Samsonov as Nina, Judith Roberts as Joe's mother, John Doman, Alex Manette and Dante Pereira-Olson among the credited cast of 39.
The film was released in 2017 and runs 89 minutes. It is a British and French production made for about 17 million dollars, and its worldwide gross of roughly 9 million dollars was below that figure. On IMDb it holds 6.7 out of 10 from around 135,000 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.5 from a much smaller number of votes. A critics' rating of 8.2 from 287 reviews is markedly higher than either audience score.
What's left behind the scenes
- Director Lynn Ramsay sent the lead actor, Joaquin Phoenix, an audio file featuring firecrackers and poppers interspersed with the sounds of gunshots. A note accompanying it stated that this is roughly what's happening in his character's head.
- The film was approved for the Cannes Film Festival while still unfinished, and was completed only a few days before its first screening. Ramsay stated that an unfinished version of the film was shown in Cannes.
- According to director Lynn Ramsay, the scene in which Joaquin Phoenix's character lies on the floor next to the agent and begins to sing was conceived by the actor himself.
- In the novel of the same name by Jonathan Ames, the protagonist uses props such as rubber gloves and various devices. Lynn Ramsay claims that it was Joaquin Phoenix who suggested discarding most of these to give his character more authenticity.
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