You Were Never Really Here | KT Review

The amazing Joaquin Phoenix stars in You Were Never Really Here as a traumatised veteran asked to do a job rescuing a young girl from a sex ring. If you’re a fan of We Need to Talk About Kevin, A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night and those kinds of movies, this might be just your thing. It’s now available on Amazon Prime

You Were Never Really Here

A traumatized veteran tracks down missing girls for a living. And sets out to rescue a young girl from a sex ring and finds himself weathering a storm of violent vengeance when things start to go wrong and a conspiracy is uncovered.

Starring Joaquin Phoenix (Walk the Line, Her), Judith Roberts (Dead Silence, Orange is the New Black), Ekaterina Samsonov (The Ticket, Wonderstruck), Dante Periera-Olson (Happy!, Jessica Jobes), John Doman (Gotham, Person of Interest), and Alex Manette (Blacklist, We Need to Talk About Kevin). 

You Were Never Really Here Review Conclusion

I might watch it again – I’d say this movie was a slow burn but it’s more of an oxygen-depleted fire in the carpet before someone opens the door and creates the backdraft. Except no-one opens the door. 

It’s pleasantly violent whilst you think you know what’s going on and then you don’t. And it never really seems to pick back up and tell you what IS going on. It’s just this bizarre descent into…confusion, insanity, the void? And even if this was the point didn’t I deserve to know?

The long stretched out scenes with never-ending repetitive music…I think I’m meant to feel for this guy, and he is clearly feeling stuff, but I just felt like I was forever waiting for a hint. Not even my lizard brain knew what was going on. And so, at some point, I might watch it again. Just in case I missed something. Something obvious. Something that I should have seen but didn’t. 

2.5 Stars


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