The Souvenir (2019)

Film: The Souvenir (2019)
Stars: Honor Swinton Byrne, Tom Burke, Tilda Swinton
Director: Joanna Hogg
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

It's nearly November, which means it's about that time of year where I see A) a lot of movies in theaters and B) start to scoop up the critical darlings/intriguing pictures that I missed in theaters earlier this year & feel I should be watching before I make any sort of "best of/worst of" lists in January.  At the very top of that list was The Souvenir, a movie that earned absolute raves back in May when it came out, but for reasons I can't entirely remember now, I didn't get around to seeing (it's entirely possible I just felt particularly broke that month, and this only played at the theater where you have to spring for parking).  Whatever the reasons, I recently watched The Souvenir, and wanted to share my experiences with the film, which focuses on the latest progeny of acting royalty taking a whack at their parent's craft.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film centers on Julie (Swinton Byrne), a young film student who is attempting to make a movie about a working-class family in England.  Julie meets a man from the Foreign Office named Anthony (Burke), a seemingly posh guy, and they begin to date.  Eventually Julie starts to understand that Anthony is hardly perfect, as he frequently borrows money from her (which she gets from her wealthy mother, played by the actress's real life mother), and there are hints at infidelity & drug use.  This becomes too much for her, even though she clearly loves him, when he robs her and sells her jewelry to be able to buy heroin.  While they reconnect after he turns sober, this isn't enough, and he regresses back to using drugs, eventually dying from an overdose in a public toilet.  The film strongly implies that Julie will use this difficult chapter of her life in future art.

The film is based off of some of director Joanna Hogg's own experiences at film school, and it shows in the personal nature of the film.  The movie is probably at its best when it's showing the subtlety of class.  This is reflected not just in the ways that Julie treats the subjects of her film, but also in the way that she doesn't need to worry about money in the same way that Anthony does-she has the financial freedom given to her through her parent's fortune to pursue a creative dream, rather than staying in the Foreign Office and trying to find outlets elsewhere (through sex and drugs).  This was fascinating to me-it's rare you see a movie about money not shove the fact that "it's about money" into every lens of the film, wanting to spoon-feed to the audience, and instead just subtly give us a taste of Anthony's frustrations at never having been given the freedoms of his young romantic partner.  The film is smart in not judging these characters-they simply appear as they are, and this classism is one of the glowing side effects we find out as the movie progresses.

I didn't love The Souvenir in the way that other people did.  While I appreciated the subtler aspects, I felt that there are stretches of the movie that feel washed out by simply observing, and aren't as sharp as they could have been.  The film is not long for a modern-day drama (119 minutes), but it felt like trimming about 10-15 minutes off of the top would have tightened the story and still gotten the same point across.  Swinton Byrne doesn't have her mother's instantly iconic screen presence, which is not something you should really hold against her (demanding a 22-year-old actress have the magnetism of Tilda Swinton is an absurd ask of anyone), but I wish I had known more about what she was thinking, as it felt too surface-level, not enough inner-monologue for a movie that's really driven by her own feelings for Anthony.  The movie is well-crafted, and I'm curious to see more from everyone involved (there's a lot of promise there), but other than the conversations about class, I left more intrigued than satisfied.  I want to see what Hogg & Swinton Byrne do with more time & budgets to get their vision across, but am not quite enamored at this juncture.