Director: Joanna Hogg
Writer: Joanna Hogg (Screenplay)
Starring: Honor Swinton Byrne, Tom Burke, Tilda Swinton
Plot: A young film student in the early ’80s becomes romantically involved with a complicated and untrustworthy man.
Tagline – The Past Never Stays in Focus.
Runtime: 2 Hours
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: The Souvenir starts as we meet the young film student Julie (Byrne) who is planning her first project, when she meets Anthony (Burke) an employee for the foreign office. The two start a relationship, where Anthony’s mystery will only make Julie’s dreams more difficult with his behavior towards her.
As the relationship continues to unfold, Julie gets more distant from the controlling figure, causing her more pain, with his lies, putting her own future at risk.
Thoughts on The Souvenir
Thoughts – The Souvenir will show us the difficulties that come from an abusive relationship, where one person is making the other one’s hell with their addiction, which will leave them in a position of needing to support or face their own future. It will highlight that it can come from any background in society, showing that even the upper-class part of society has the problems. The Souvenir shows the view of an addict from a loved one, rather than the addict’s point of view, which is different to what we see more often, but it doesn’t stop the fact we are witnessing to painful relationship unfold. The performances are strong from both Honor Swinton Byrne and Tom Burke. The Souvenir does come off like a very stuck-up movie though, where the characters give the feeling that they are looking down on everyone else in their world, which doesn’t make this as enjoyable watching.
Final Thoughts – The Souvenir is a stuck-up version of a bad relationship.