Scarred, suicidal, lives with his mum, funny, terrifying, all those sorts of things.
How did she develop the character with Joaquin, how did they work together? We just got in there really early. As soon as I arrived in New York, he was with me. Part of my crew. Two minutes before, I think, maybe even less time than that. I mean we lived round the corner from each other in Brooklyn. I was like…Oh my God, I’ve got so much to do. I tried to make every minute work with him and I would run round there. Computer, bang off ideas on each other. He’s got this kind of bullshit detector. So, anything that felt cliché, he would remind me. Always trying to push this character into something we hadn’t seen before. I don’t think I slept basically. We made the film in nine months. It was crazy, but now I can relax.
In Lynne Ramsay’s previous films, Marven Callar, Samantha Morton and about her mourning the suicide of her husband and hitting the road with her friend but finds she can’t run away from forever, is a film which showed Ramsay’s dexterity as a director. In You Were Never Really Here she opts for a radical structure and is not afraid to linger on the coincidental that will no doubt grate on those who would prefer waging a war on Joe’s demons. But this is a story about a disturbed man that even by using a hammer says a lot about his psyche that he is leaving his mark on his victims, his specific indentation. And about the girl, Joaquin says: The girl is the one who saves herself, so it’s not about the man coming and saving the girl.
Ultimately, this brilliant film tells its story in a totally unusual way. A man who gets around via the back streets and emergency exits, who is attacked and reacts to his attacker with violence. He sees no one other than his elderly mother, we see her watching Hitchcock’s Psycho on television, which Joe finds amusing. All traces of who he once was has been erased, hiding his real address as well as his face, masked by a grey beard, hounded by painful flashbacks. He must discreetly track down the girl, Nina (Ekaterina Samsonov) because this isn’t the first time the 13-year-old has disappeared, and an anonymous phone call has placed her in a house of very ill-repute. After a little preparation, a few enquiries and a good deal of patience, Joe enters the building, takes out two security guards and a naked, masked visitor with the aid of his hammer and rescues the girl who is not inclined to say much. This violent rescue mission is witnessed through the images of the security cameras, and triggers a chaotic spiral of events: Nina’s father kills himself that same night, a pair of thick, bloody arms scoop up the girl once again and danger closes in on those near to Joe, who has stumbled upon the very root of evil in a city where innocence is sacrificed to close a deal. There is brilliant cinematography by Thomas Townsend exploring the darker sides of New York’s churning entrails. The film ends with a character saying Beautiful Day, which was the original title of the film.
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