It’s a dog eat dog world. And the dogged assassin with the hangdog face Joe (Joaquin Phoenix) is top dog. If there’s something strange in the neighbourhood, he’s the guy to call.

The neighbourhood being New York where he lives with his ageing mother (Judith Roberts) who contrary to the lyrics of the Sesame Street song they both sing is not “alphabetically speaking” okay, with dementia tightening its grip.

The something strange being paedophile rings, the ringleaders and clients of whom he goes at hammer and tongs ‒ literally ‒ to numb the pain of abuse he received and witnessed in childhood as well as wipe out the horrors of war which he experienced first hand, flashbacks of which trouble his mind.

Without being able to purge his demons in such a brutal and swift manner, he is a man standing on the edge of a railway platform who wrestles with the thought to jump. Saving children is what saves his life.

But when that opportunity is taken away from him by a run of the mill assassination gone wrong (the abductors of a politician’s daughter kick back), the gap between train and platform widens ‒ and he is not minding it. That is, until an unlikely angel attempts to pull him back from the brink.

Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsay, in her first feature since the 2011 hit We Need To Talk About Kevin, is once again on the money. As a screenwriter, she is similar to her principal character in that she is a person of few words, opting instead to show not tell, suggest not reveal, through a series of haunting images which drip, drip, drip into the psyche.

Some of them are fleeting, such as a dog in a side street sniffing about the bins, while the far from regular Joe is licking his wounds in the background. Others are long and slow, at times pushing the boundaries of patience, the most memorable of which is the bloody slaying of several paedophiles as caught on CCTV while the lyrics “Because I love you, I love you, I do” from Angel Baby by Rosie and the The Originals pine in the background.

Speaking of music, the score by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, who worked with Ramsay on We Need To Talk About Kevin and more recently was Oscar-nominated for composing the soundtrack to Phantom Thread, is as prominent as Joe’s bedraggled beard. Discordant, abrupt and jangling, it jolts the senses and offers a glimpse into the chaotic background noise which is building to a crescendo in Joe’s wayward mind. A crescendo which peaks in the closing scene which is nothing short of brilliant.

Director: Lynne Ramsay
Writers: Lynne Ramsay (written for the screen by), Jonathan Ames (book)
Stars: Joaquin Phoenix, Dante Pereira-Olson, Larry Canady
Peter Callaghan
Latest posts by Peter Callaghan (see all)