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Review by Simon Bell |
 
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JUST like with her powerful and promising debut Ratcatcher (1999), Lynne
Ramsay's much awaited follow up is pretty shy of plot explainers and rather
rich in thought-provoking visuals and say-what? dialogue.
Ambience and mood rules over all though. So what better way to seduce your
audience into the frame than with a prostrate Samantha Morton, mesmerised
by nictating Christmas tree lights, lost in thought as she listlessly fingers
her dead boyfriend on the kitchen floor.
The bit of trouser's only gone and topped himself and left his girlfriend
a note instructing her to have his completed novel dispatched to the publishers
for a posthumous print, pronto.
Morvern Callar (for that is the very Scottish name of the film's very English
protagonist) subsequently passes off the fortunate literary find as her own,
cashes in on it and is very soon spunking it in the Spanish sun with best
chum Lanna (the impressive Kathleen McDermott).
But it's not for sangria-soaked shagging that 21-year-old Morvern's decamped
from her drab and parochial Scottish Highland surroundings (not to mention
her supermarket job). For while her red-headed consort cavorts in a bacchanalian
fuck frenzy, the Costa Del Sol provides our misunderstood heroine with a promised-land
of a different kind.
Away from the package holidaymakers, Morvern is free to explore the scorched
Mediterranean landscape and investigate (or diagnose?) what it is that seems
to be wrong with her. This leads her (in a not very roundabout way) into negotiation
for a second book deal with the still none-the-wiser publishers. It's now
that she can finally contemplate an escape proper to the new life she's been
seeking.
While
Ramsay's flair is most obvious in composition and oeuvre, the audio is equally
important to the piece. The soundtrack is made up almost entirely of an eclectic
mixtape Morvern listens to on the walkman left to her by her dead beau.
And the director's objective of externalising the internal proves to be absolutely
pivotal. You'll see why when you take indielondon's recommendation seriously
and get along to the next screening.
It's tough and heavy-hearted, but worth a look all the same.
RELATED STORIES: Click here
for a Q&A with actress, Samantha Morton...
Click here for a Q&A with director,
Lynne Ramsay...
Click here for a review of
the movie's soundtrack...
