You Were Never Really Here | |
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Directed by | Lynne Ramsay |
Screenplay by | Lynne Ramsay |
Based on | You Were Never Really Here by Jonathan Ames |
Produced by |
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Starring | |
Cinematography | Thomas Townend |
Edited by | Joe Bini |
Music by | Jonny Greenwood |
Production companies |
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Distributed by | StudioCanal (United Kingdom) Amazon Studios (United States) SND Films (France) [1] |
Release dates |
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Running time | 90 minutes [2] |
Countries |
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Language | English |
Box office | $9.4 million [3] |
You Were Never Really Here (released as A Beautiful Day in France and Germany) is a 2017 neo-noir crime psychological thriller film written and directed by Lynne Ramsay. [4] Based on the 2013 novella of the same name by Jonathan Ames, it stars Joaquin Phoenix, Ekaterina Samsonov, Alex Manette, John Doman, and Judith Roberts. In the film, a traumatized mercenary named Joe (Phoenix) is hired by a politician to find and rescue his daughter who has been kidnapped by a human trafficking network, which Joe is instructed to destroy by any violent means. The film was co-produced between the United Kingdom and France.
An early cut premiered at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival in competition, [5] [6] where Ramsay won the award for Best Screenplay and Phoenix the award for Best Actor. [7] The film was released by StudioCanal in the UK, on 9 March 2018, and by Amazon Studios in the U.S., where it began a limited release in Los Angeles and New York on 6 April 2018, and a wide release on 20 April. [8] It received critical acclaim, with Ramsay's direction and Phoenix's performance garnering high praise.
Joe is a traumatized hired gun who specializes in rescuing trafficked girls, using brutal methods against their captors. He cares for his elderly mother in his childhood home in New York City. Joe has flashbacks of the abuse he and his mother faced from his violent father, and his brutal past in the military and FBI, and is troubled by suicidal thoughts.
As he comes home one night, Joe is seen by Moises, the son of Angel, who acts as middleman between Joe and his handler, John McCleary. Joe tells McCleary that Angel knows his address and may pose a security risk. McCleary assigns Joe a new job from Albert Votto, a New York State Senator. Votto has offered a large sum of money to discreetly rescue his abducted daughter, Nina. He gives Joe the address of a brothel for wealthy patrons sent via an anonymous text. Joe stakes out the brothel, kills several security guards and patrons, and rescues Nina. While Joe and Nina await Votto's arrival in a hotel room, the news reports that Votto has committed suicide. Police officers gain access to the room with the help of the desk clerk, kill the clerk, and take Nina. Joe escapes after killing an officer sent to kill him.
Joe finds that government agents killed McCleary, Angel, and Moises while searching for Joe's address. Arriving back at his home, Joe discovers that two agents have murdered his mother and have been waiting for him. He kills one agent and mortally wounds the other. As the agent is dying, he reveals that Votto and Governor Williams are pedophiles and child traffickers and that Nina is Williams's favorite. He explains that Williams is directing the authorities to cover up the trafficking. Joe drives to a lake in a forest to give his mother a water burial and fills his pockets with stones, with the intent of killing himself. As he sinks, he has a vision of Nina. Removing the stones from his pockets, he swims back to the surface.
Joe follows Williams to his country home and fights his way in, only to discover Williams with his throat slit. He searches the house and discovers Nina, who is seated at a dining room table, alongside a bloody straight razor. Although Joe has become increasingly upset, Nina reassures him that she is alright. The two go to a diner to discuss their future. Joe has a violent suicidal fantasy and passes out. Nina wakes him, saying, "It's a beautiful day." He agrees, and they leave together.
On 11 May 2016, it was reported that Lynne Ramsay would write and direct an adaptation of Jonathan Ames' novella You Were Never Really Here, starring Joaquin Phoenix. The project would be shopped to Cannes buyers. [10] Although it was initially reported that A24 had acquired the project for $2 million, Amazon Studios bought U.S. rights to You Were Never Really Here for around $3.5 million on 13 May 2016. [11] Principal photography took place during August 2016 in and around New York City. [12] [13] Some interior scenes were shot at Kaufman Astoria Studios. On 2 May 2017, it was confirmed that composer Jonny Greenwood would score the film. [14] The film was still a work in progress when it premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on 27 May 2017. [15] [16]
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 89% based on 285 reviews, with an average rating of 8.3/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Bracingly elevated by a typically committed lead performance from Joaquin Phoenix, You Were Never Really Here confirms writer-director Lynne Ramsay as one of modern cinema's most unique—and uncompromising—voices." [17] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 84 out of 100, based on 41 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". [18]
Sheila O'Malley of RogerEbert.com gave the film 4 out of 4 stars, saying that the film "is a taut and almost unbearably intense 90-minutes, without an ounce of fat on it. Ramsay doesn't give you a second to breathe." [19] Guy Lodge for Variety said Ramsay may be the world's "greatest working filmmaker," and called the film "astonishing... a stark, sinewy, slashed-to-the-bone hitman thriller far more concerned with the man than the hit." [20]
Critics Leah Pickett and Abraham Raphael noted similarities between You Were Never Really Here and the 1976 film Taxi Driver [21] [22] with both films involving friendships between an adult male and a child victim of prostitution and exploring the seedy underworld of New York City.
Award | Date of ceremony | Category | Recipients | Result | Ref. |
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British Academy Film Awards | 10 February 2019 | Outstanding British Film | Lynne Ramsay, Rosa Attab, Pascal Caucheteux, and James Wilson | Nominated | [23] |
British Independent Film Awards | 2 December 2018 | Best British Independent Film | Lynne Ramsay, Pascal Caucheteux, Rosa Attab, James Wilson and Rebecca O’Brien | Nominated | [24] |
Best Director | Lynne Ramsay | Nominated | |||
Best Actor | Joaquin Phoenix | Nominated | |||
Best Screenplay | Lynne Ramsay | Nominated | |||
Best Cinematography | Thomas Townend | Nominated | |||
Best Editing | Joe Bini | Nominated | |||
Best Music | Jonny Greenwood | Won | |||
Best Sound | You Were Never Really Here | Won | |||
Cannes Film Festival | 28 May 2017 | Palme d'Or | You Were Never Really Here | Nominated | [25] |
Best Actor | Joaquin Phoenix | Won | |||
Best Screenplay | Lynne Ramsay | Won | |||
Independent Spirit Awards | 23 February 2019 | Best Feature | Rosa Attab, Pascal Caucheteux, Rebecca O’Brien, Lynne Ramsay and James Wilson | Nominated | [26] |
Best Director | Lynne Ramsay | Nominated | |||
Best Male Lead | Joaquin Phoenix | Nominated | |||
Best Editing | Joe Bini | Won | |||
Noir Film Festival | 9 December 2017 | Special Jury Award | Lynne Ramsay | Won | [27] |
Black Lion | You Were Never Really Here | Nominated |
Joaquin Rafael Phoenix is an American actor. Known for his roles as dark, unconventional and eccentric characters, particularly in period dramas, he has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, a Grammy Award, and two Golden Globe Awards. In 2020, The New York Times named him one of the greatest actors of the 21st century.
Gus Green Van Sant Jr. is an American filmmaker, photographer, painter, and musician who has earned acclaim as an independent filmmaker. His films typically deal with themes of marginalized subcultures.
Lynne Ramsay is a Scottish film director, writer, producer, and cinematographer, best known for the feature films Ratcatcher (1999), Morvern Callar (2002), We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011), and You Were Never Really Here (2017). As of now, Ramsay is working on numerous feature films that have not yet been released.
The 55th Cannes Film Festival took place from 15 to 26 May 2002. American filmmaker David Lynch served as jury president for the main competition. Virginie Ledoyen hosted the opening and closing ceremonies.
Joe Bini is an American film editor.
Rooney Mara Phoenix is an American actress. She has received various accolades, including nominations for two Academy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards and a British Academy Film Award.
Jonathan Ames is an American author who has written a number of novels and comic memoirs, and is the creator of two television series, Bored to Death (HBO) and Blunt Talk (STARZ). In the late '90s and early 2000s, he was a columnist for the New York Press for several years, and became known for self-deprecating tales of his sexual misadventures. He also has a long-time interest in boxing, appearing occasionally in the ring as "The Herring Wonder".
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Judith Roberts is an American actress, who performed in various stage productions and appeared in film and television. She starred in the horror film Eraserhead (1977) by David Lynch and in later age played the main antagonist Mary Shaw in James Wan's supernatural horror film, Dead Silence (2007). She also starred in films Fred Won't Move Out (2012), You Were Never Really Here (2017) and The Last Thing Mary Saw (2021). Roberts also played Erica Taslitz, one of "The Golden Girls", in the Netflix comedy-drama series Orange Is the New Black in 2014.
Disorder is a 2015 French-Belgian co-production neo-noir thriller film directed by Alice Winocour about a home invasion, starring Matthias Schoenaerts as an ex-soldier with PTSD. It was screened in competition in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival.
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The 70th Cannes Film Festival took place from 17 to 28 May 2017, in Cannes, France. Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar was the president of the jury for the main competition. Italian actress Monica Bellucci hosted the opening and closing ceremonies. Swedish filmmaker Ruben Östlund won the Palme d'Or, the festival's top prize, for his comedy-drama film The Square.
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You Were Never Really Here (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack to the 2018 film You Were Never Really Here, composed by Jonny Greenwood. The score was not composed to the film due to Greenwood's busy schedules on tour, instead, as per Ramsay's suggestions, Greenwood had composed few pieces based on the pieces she sent and derived those cues, which was utilised in the background by the sound engineer Graeme Stewart who produced the film score.