Mark Reviews Movies: THE SOUVENIR: PART II

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Review by Mark Dujsik | November 4, 2021

The Souvenir: Part II is a rare sequel in several respects. It proceeds a lower-budget and seemingly self-contained drama, at a time when such movies are becoming scarcer—or, at least, more difficult to find among the more dominant kind of movies, usually intended to become sequel-generating machines. It's an essential follow-up, too, in that writer/director Joanna Hogg makes the sequel a key part of this overarching tale and the progression of its central character. Finally, it's a much better film than its predecessor, partly because of its ambition, but mostly because it serves to address what were some pretty glaring issues with the first movie.

That one was The Souvenir (naturally), which was released only two years ago (The short turnaround suggests Hogg always had this tale in mind as a two-parter). It revolved around the troubled—and troubling—romance between a film student and a lying, manipulative man.

Knowledge of that movie, which failed to communicate the allure of the guy and seemed a bit too unwilling to confront why the protagonist was so willing to give into his controlling and destructive behavior, is a necessity for this film, which is slightly unfortunate. On the other hand, one does wonder if the previous movie will reveal new layers or deeper insights after seeing how Hogg connects the duology and ties up the tale in the sequel.

The story here picks up almost immediately after the ending of the first movie, with Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne), the film student, still shocked and in grieving over the sudden but not unexpected death of Anthony (Tom Burke, whose absence, admirably, remains a physical reality in this story—although that's not to say he doesn't return in some form or how that return might happen). Anthony seemed a relatively charming and successful government employee in England of the 1980s, but he had a secret—and then a not-at-all secret—double life as a heroin addict. That addiction eventually killed him, by way of an overdose in a public bathroom.

Julie is grieving and staying with her parents (Tilda Swinton, Swinton Byrne's real-life mother, returns—and has a much more substantial role—as the mother, as does James Spencer Ashworth as the father) in their posh country home at the start of this film. At first, the continuing story seems content to define itself and Julie by the ghost of Anthony.

If one ignores the character himself as previously established and simply observes this lengthy section as Julie facing the pain and uncertainty of grief, Hogg handles these assorted scenes with delicacy and frankness. Julie visits Anthony's parents (played again by Barbara Peirson and James Dodds), who weren't aware of their only son's addiction. She sees her deceased boyfriend's therapist (played by Gail Ferguson), who suggests Anthony might not have seen a way out of his troubles and simply ended them.

Julie wants answers. No one, it seems, can provide them for her.

Even before the story proper begins, though, Hogg sets up some air of hope and freedom within this film. Those familiar with the first movie may recall that one of its consistent visual motifs involved shots of a lonely, gloomy field, lined with trees and set against a cloudy twilight sky. The first images here, on the other hand, are close-ups of assorted flowers in the garden tended by Julie's mother.

Hogg, whose use of such cutaway shots and suddenly interrupted scenes of characters going about their lives established a particularly grim mood in the first movie, maintains that occasionally jarring rhythm here. The mood of these moments, though, has drastically changed, as if, even among the knowledge and melancholy of death, life and promise continue to flourish.

Amidst her grief and all of those questions about Anthony, life does continue and even improve for Julie. She has an awkward late-night rendezvous with a handsome actor (played Charlie Heaton). She watches her friend, the professional filmmaker Patrick (Richard Ayoade, a scene-stealer), finally working to make his big British musical. She returns to film school, tossing aside her plans to make a movie about a struggling port city in favor of something more personal: the story of her relationship with Anthony as she perceived it.

Much of the second half of the film revolves around the production of that project. It's fascinating as a look at the behind-the-scenes drama and debates on a student film, as well as thoughtful in the way it illuminates Julie's perspective (which was strangely ignored) on the events of the first movie. The approach is also and rather daring in the way Hogg (who essentially confirms that this pair of movies is at least semi-autobiographical with the sequel's final shot) uses her protagonist as a method to explain her own concept, as well as the critiques, of the first movie's storytelling.

Julie directs her actors in familiar scenes, re-created almost directly from the first movie, and learns some vital things along the way—how others see her in terms of her relationship with Anthony, how much she missed and will never know about the man she loved, the professional and managerial side of filmmaking. The film's climax, as Julie and a crowd attend a screening of the finished result, follows through on Patrick's advice to "avoid the temptation to do the obvious," taking us, not through the movie Julie made, but into the movie of her mind.

Julie grows over the course of The Souvenir: Part II in ways that seemed unlikely of the character as she existed in the first movie. More importantly, though, Hogg directly reflects upon the story of the first movie and, in rich and rewarding ways, evolves the storytelling of this one as it unfolds.

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