Manager: Andrew Haigh
Artists: Andrew Scott, Paul Mescal, Claire Foy, Jamie Bell
Year: 2023
Premiere: February 23, 2024
★★★
Throughout his career Andrew Haigh paid particular attention to: portraying characters who are unhappy with their sexual identities They neither adapt to the ‘queer’ culture they are a part of, nor can they heal the wounds of the past. Of course, he does so for the first time here through something akin to a ghost story, where the naturalism of his earlier work seems to have morphed into something else. metaphysical melodrama.
The film’s protagonist is a screenwriter who returns to his childhood home after an encounter with a mysterious neighbor that leads to an affair; Here his parents are there, looking the same age as they were on the day of his death 30 years ago. one starts healing work through conversations I never had with them. And these sociologically and psychologically precise dialogues also touch on topics such as: cultural attitude changes It’s about gay men and AIDS.
In the process, Haigh initially allows “Unknowns” to pass through the area. poetic and mysterious, but in an increasingly realistic and clearly emotional way, he adapts the claustrophobic world to the contours of the protagonist’s trauma. For this reason and despite the fact that he bid by the way devastating scenesThe film dilutes its emotional impact as it moves towards a predictable catharsis and a resolution better forgotten, always wrapped in a certain therapeutic aura.