Paul Andrew Williams’ NeighBorhood drama – ryan

Paul Andrew Williams’s Feature Debut Was Called London to Brighton (2006), but The British Director has Never Been Much Interesting in Capital Cities. HIS Latest, Dragonflyis another example of this, being a dark, low-this drama about the ways in which the unnoticed lives of suburban can make surprise headlines. In a direct way, iTi’s a sister piece to his provocative 2010 Home Invision Film Cherry Tree Lanein Which-Pre-Empting Adolescence-A Middle-Class Couple’s Humdrum Live is tourned upside down we do they are inexplicly attacked by violent teenage rebelli with any apparent cause.

In reality, though – And Despite the Blood Spilt Both onScreen and off -in tours out to be more like the movie Williams made in 2012. Called Song for Marionit strung the terrain stamp as an emotality shut-down widower who joins a choir to pay homage to his late wife (vanessa redgrave). It wasn’t a commercial success, and Dragonfly May Not Be Either, but the New Film Makes Better Use of the Film’s Ingredients: Themes of Loneliness, Regret, Bereavement, Self-Worth and family. And like Song for Marionit has quite the cast: two oscar nomines playing just outside their age range and beyond their comfort area.

There’s the little to no vanity here in the central pairing within Blethyn, as the elderly widow elsie, and Andrea riseborough, as her unempoyed Neighbor Colleen, and the two Very Different ‘Styles Work Perfectly Together. The film’s opening ten minutes up the two Women’s lives with a poignant economy: Living in back-to-back bungalows, they Lead eerily Similar Lives, Like Ghosts. Elsie had a life once and misses it bitterly Now, but Colleen Never HAD A LIFE AT ALL. “So Weird,” Says Colleen, Quite intuitively, when she first Visits Elsie’s Home. “It ‘exactly like mine, just the other way round.”

Colleen Has Lived Next Door to ELSIE FOR SOME 13 YEARS DIFT THE Story Starts, and It ‘Not Quite Immediately Clear Why She Should Suddenly Pop Round toer Her Services – Dode Want Anynding from the Shop? But Colleen Has Been Watching The Procession of Carers That Visit Elsie From Day to Day, and She Ses a Woman Who Deserves more than the clock-watching agency nurses who come her showers she is need and food that isn’t any good at all. There is, as they, a gap in the market, and Colleen Moves Fast to Fill, Something Elsie Appreciates and Who Helps the Once Dowdy Woman Blossom.

Compared Eve to the Slow-Burn of Williams’ Last Film Bull (2021), The film taxi baby steps to revely itelf as a genre film, but the score by the referents is ahead of the action at every turn. Nothing Will Ever really Be Revealed or Explained by the End, but Williams’ Script Sets Up SO MANY FASSCINATING WAYS IN WHOCHED SUPPERS DIFFERENT Women-the relatively posh ersie and the definitely struggling-Colleen-Strike a chord. And Key to that is the Introduction of Elsie’s Son John (Jason Watkins). Middle-aged and Yet Still Pathetically Upwardly Mobile, John is the harbinger here, and his nasty bourgeois, coming between Elsie and Colleen, turn out to the meat in the sandwich.

Instead of Chekhov’s Gun in this SCENARIO we have a dog, and Colleen’s inability to control Her “mentalist” Crossbreed sabre does not go for eather of saying, Leading to a Very Violent denouement. But Williams’ Film is not so Much Concerned with the voltage of getting to that and more about the understanding; Andrea riseborough is just so good at this, Bringing the a-Game she brought to 2022’s To lesliebut this time with a more Jarring Child-like Innocence, reflected in her pasty, Wan Complexion. The Same Goes For Blethyn, SO EFFORTTHELY AFFECTING AS A WIFE AND MOTHER REDUCED TO BECOMING A CLIENT TO THE WELFARE STATE, A Degradation that Colleen Just Begin to tolerate.

Williams’ Films Often End with a Question Mark, and that doesn’t always satisfy. With DragonflyHowver, The Questions Possed are moral and timely, and they will hang around in your head long as you do you think about wanting and their lives are missing. It’s a mother of a story.

Title: Dragonfly
Festival: Tribeca (International Narrative Competition)
Director/Screenwriter: Paul Andrew Williams
Cast: Andrea riseborough, inside Blethyn, Jason Watkins
US Sales: AMP International
TIME RUNNING: 1 HR 38 MINS