You Were Never Really Here

[T]his intoxicatingly stylish work is all over the place, a hot mess at times so ravishing it sends shivers down to the toes. Unfortunately, it's also at times just plain crass and silly.

In the end, there's no question that what you're watching is a masterfully-made movie, albeit one that's easier to admire from afar than up close.

It's the kind of movie I'm glad [Ramsay] made because her interrogation of Joe's masculinity is the sort of thing endemic to the material that many male directors might have missed in an attempt to make the movie more "exciting."

The film is technically impressive in every respect with fine, fluid camerawork by Thomas Townend and an impressive electronic music score by Jonny Greenwood.

Enough information is provided to let us discern the rudiments of a conventional plot - but our understanding of this remains tentative, hypothetical, shadowed by the possibility that all is not as it seems.

You Were Never Really Here isn't just about the rescue of a State Senator's daughter. Rather an expression of a single man's existence, ghostly by all extents.

A cryptically stunning crime drama casting Joaquin Phoenix as a contract killer whose comingled violence and conscience-stricken pain are complicated by PTSD as a Gulf War veteran...

There’s something about Phoenix taps into Joe’s ability to both transcend his PTSD (ie. save young women from dangerous situations) and suffer heavily from it. It makes those final moments at the diner so beautiful...

You Were Never Really Here is not for the faint of heart–it is cold and violent but there are extremely important messages throughout.

It was my second viewing that I was able to fall in with the film’s unique rhythms.