FRANKLYN
March 25th 2010 14:45
Preest inside his lair in Meanwhile City
This film is Gerald McMorrow’s feature film debut, as director and screen writer. On its overall look, the film appears to have a robust budget, but it was made for a mere £6 million; achieved by careful story boarding and scheduling, subtle artistry in cinematography and splendid art direction. I certainly commend the production crew for achieving such fiscal prudence without compromising artistic achievement.
The film has been variously described as science fiction, thriller and gothic thriller. Audiences and critics alike are polarised they either they hate it, or love it.
The sci-fi aspect of the story is very low key; the film presents more as a gallimaufry of psychologically troubled people, with a side salad of psychopathic thriller. McMorrow describes them as, “...four lost souls, set across a parallel world and into contemporary London.”
This film is the further development of an earlier McMorrow short film, which featured a suicidal girl in a flat with a gunman living above her, who is about to kill someone across the street. McMorrow said he wanted to know more about these characters and their motivations, so he wrote Franklyn. According to McMorrow, essentially, the link for all four is their feeling of loss and their journey to find what is missing in their lives, in order to fulfil their individual needs.
Eva Green as Emilia, midst the nexus of two worlds
We start in the parallel gothic world of Meanwhile City, where we are introduced to John Preest, played by Ryan Phillippe. Preest is a self styled masked avenger and Meanwhile’s only atheist, making Preest a renegade, who must skulk around the streets at night to avoid arrest by the city’s overlords.
Presst facing arrest by Meanwhile City clerics
Meanwhile City is ruled by an autocratic regime that, presides over a society with a plurality of religious beliefs, anyone who does not belong to a religious group, is arrested. Of course, it matters not what your faith believes in, like the Seventh Day Manicurists, but your religion must be registered and you must be a member, of something.
From Preest’s roof top lair, the Meanwhile City skyline looks a smoggy, dark, brooding and steeple pierced place; the streets are filled with bizarre pastors and other religious hysterics, with their oddball adherents all swallowing the drivel being proffered, like the religion whose teachings consist entirely of quoting from direction manuals, for whitegoods. I think Mister McMorrow has a slightly jaded opinion of organized religion and frankly, I don’t blame him.
I loved production designer Laurence Dorman’s view of this bizarre city, quirky, murky and gothic.
The start of the film, as stated, introduces Preest, who delivers this short soliloquy;
“If a god is willing to prevent evil, but not able, then he is not omnipotent. If he is able but not willing, then he must be malevolent. If he is neither able nor willing, then why call him a god? Why else do bad things happen to good people?”
With this philosophical revelation, we understand Preest has nothing to restrain his vigilantism, he then informs us that, tonight, he is going to kill a man.
Ryan Phillippe as John Preest
I liked Preest’s mask; two dead vacant black spaces for the eyes, in an otherwise featureless form, with webbing at the back for securing it over his head. The costume designer, Leonie Hartard, took McMorrow’s original cartoon of the front of the mask and then added her own touch, the webbing.
Hartard, had a rich palette to draw from, as there was to be no specific time/place association for Meanwhile City. Hartard drew design influences from the Medieval Age to fetish wear, the trend in hues to be dark, the look muddy and shabby. I loved the look of Meanwhile City, a hodgepodge of styles and influences, from cartoons to grim gothic façades, the pity was, we didn’t stay in that world.
Instead, we are instantly and inexplicably transferred into modern day London, where we meet four characters over the course of the film, who at times pass each other without direct interaction, till the conclusion, where they all end up in the same street, where each one finds some conclusion to their personal odyssey.
Emilia in hospital again
Each character has their fair share of problems, two of them have more extreme mental maladies than the others, like the attention seeking Emilia, (played by Eva Green) who repeatedly orchestrates her suicide, while filming it, but not before placing, by her bedside, all the information the medics need to facilitate her rescue, then she calls the ambulance.
After her latest attempt, while sitting alone in a hospital hallway, Green is approached by the hospital janitor, Pastor Bone, played by James Faulkner, who wants to share his insights into suicide attempts. Green explains, to Pastor Bone, who tells her his name means ‘bread of life’, that her suicide attempts are for her art school project, but we later discover, Emilia is really trying to get her mother’s attention, eventually she does, by opening up to her directly, gaining the explanation and apology she has needed since early childhood.
Sam Riley as Milo and pal Sally (Eva Green)
Another rather hapless victim of life’s vicissitudes is Milo, played by Sam Riley, whom we meet just moments after he was abandoned, at the altar, by his intended bride. Through his subdued emotional trauma, he finds a long lost friend from his childhood, Sally, also played by Eva Green, but his mother must interject, to help bring her son back to reality.
Then there is the central character, David, also played by Ryan Esser, whom we do not meet yet, but learn of him through his father’s determination to find his missing son. The father, Peter Esser, played by Bernard Hill, presents as a caring dad, quietly determined, yet seemingly lost in the maze of confusion and fear only a missing child can engender.
Bernard Hill as Peter Esser
We discover, his son David, was a returned soldier, who had been committed to a psychiatric facility, from which he had recently escaped. From the psychiatric unit’s director, Tarrant, played phlegmatically by Art Malik, we learn that David had used the opportunity of his medical review to over-power two orderlies, one of whom had since died from injuries inflicted by David.
The next bit of news wasn’t any better; Peter was advised not to look for his son, but return home for his own safety, as we learn that David may blame him for his younger sister Sarah’s death, on the road outside the family home. Peter says it was God’s will Sarah died and that even though his family had been sorely tested; he still has confidence in God. The welfare officer, present at the meeting, retorts that Peter’s wife told him she thinks Peter is as deluded as David.
Instead of returning home, Peter continues his search for his son; a deeply religious man, Peter is confronted by yet another person whom David had assaulted, an ex-army fellow who served with his son, Wasnik, played by Stephen Walters, who hands Peter an address, that his son told him to give to whomever came to find him. Peter reads the address and asks, “Who’s Franklyn? Wasnik doesn’t know.
A number of the actors play a couple of roles; the cynical may think this was a budgetary consideration, but there is some reason in the madness.
Ryan Philippe as Preest revealed, in Meanwhile City
I am falling into that awful trap of regurgitating the movie, moment by moment, even though I have left a lot out and slightly jumbled the sequence of events; maybe it’s my homage to the effect this film had on me?
Some of the actors play roles in both sides of reality, and within the same reality, which leads to some befuddlement. So, what was the point of the division, between present day and the other world, Meanwhile City?
So as not to spoil your experience, I am not going to reveal all the answers here, but, it does actually make some sense, although the revelation may have been achieved in a less convoluted and extended way, the effect of which has been to dilute the tension and narrative, to a point where the threads become lost at times, and consequently, the thriller aspect of the production suffers.
See; Ryan Phillippe do all his own stunt work, the wonderful Susannah York’s cameo, as Emilia’s mother, and the artistry of cinematographer Ben Davis, who created a lighting style for each character.
I still think this film is worth the look, even with the mental maze.
AUSTRALIAN DISTRIBUTORS: ICON FILM DISTRIBUTION
AVAILABLE FOR RENT OR PURCHASE ON DVD OR BLU RAY FROM APRIL 2ND, 2010
IMAGE CREDITS: Copyright presumed that of production company and/or distributors, all rights reserved; FAIR USE: For critical review of product only, low res. image and not for reproduction.
Directed by Gerald McMorrow
Produced by Jeremy Thomas
Written by Gerald McMorrow
Starring Ryan Phillippe
Eva Green
Sam Riley
Music by Joby Talbot
Cinematography Ben Davis
Editing by Peter Christelis
Distributed by Contender Films (UK)
Release date(s) 27 February 2009
Running time 95 minutes
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Budget £6 million
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Mountain Fog
Comment by Matt Shea
20/20 Filmsight
Comment by Mountain Fog
Infognito
Screen Trek
QUOTE ME NO QUOTES!
I too had not heard of it. Odd they didn't show it here, but maybe the groundswell of opinion in the negative was against it.
Released in Britain, somwhat in USA I think, that was it.
McMorrow tried to do too much, running too many threads at once.
cheers
fog
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
You got me curious about one I had all but ignored. Think I may have to check it out just for the premise.
Comment by David O'Connell
Screen Fanatic
Comment by Mountain Fog
Infognito
Screen Trek
QUOTE ME NO QUOTES!
tnax for the comp, and yeah, it both interests me and annoys me a little, it made me watch it three times, well say three sessions, making one and a third times as I went over parts, pity really, it could have been great, if McMorrow had set it almost toatally in Meanwhile City.
cheers
fog
Comment by Mountain Fog
Infognito
Screen Trek
QUOTE ME NO QUOTES!
as a fellow cinephile I say you must watch it, for its failures as much as its merits.
Frankly, I would have told the story almost entirely within Meanwhile City, some rewriting would have been needed of course, with the cross over characters, I know what he was trying to do of course, but surely it could have been achieved more logically as seen, and met, through the eyes of Preest and his other side...
cheers
fog