YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE
This is one of those films where immediately it finishes I need to go to Wikipedia, because although the plot seems simple enough it is presented in such a skeletal fashion that I felt a need to get it fleshed out. Not that the plot is really that important, even in the second half of the film when a state Senator and the state Governor enter the picture, because essentially this is a character study. And because the character in question, Joe (played by Joaquin Phoenix) is severely damaged, through childhood abuse by a violent father, and possibly through some PTSD from military service, this is not an easy viewing experience. To add further to the pain on display, Joe's line of work is to rescue under-age girls, specifically in this film Nina, the state Senator's daughter. We get to understand that Joe is damaged through the use of fleeting images from his past, and from various acts of self-harm in the present both actual and imagined. At times the combination of im...