• Reviews
    • Watch This
    • VODepths
  • Humor
  • On the Marquee
  • Looking Back
    • Classic Corner
    • Anniversary
  • Film Fests
  • Follow us
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
Crooked Marquee
  • Reviews
    • Watch This
    • VODepths
  • Humor
  • On the Marquee
  • Looking Back
    • Classic Corner
    • Anniversary
  • Film Fests
Home
Reviews

Review: The Souvenir: Part II

Oct 28th, 2021 Marya Gates 375
Review: The Souvenir: Part II

“Did you avoid the temptation to be obvious?” asks Patrick (Richard Ayoade) to fellow film student Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne). “I think so.” she replies. In this vein, Joanna Hogg’s sequel to her 2019 semi-autobiographical art house hit The Souvenir uses similar techniques to Pedro Almodóvar’s Pain & Glory. Hogg immerses the audience in scenes that are at times fiction, at times memory, at times “real,” but rarely do we know exactly which – until she wants us to know, until she wants us to be aware that she is directing this story.

The title of both films is a reference to the 1778 painting of the same name by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, which in the first film inexorably ties Julie with a mysterious well-to-do man named Anthony (Tom Burke) who supposedly works for the Foreign Office. The Souvenir recalls the whirlwind of first love, the way passion can make you blind to the faults of those you love. The intense relationship envelopes Julie, who nearly flunks out of film school, causing her to isolate herself from her friends and family. Eventually Anthony’s heroin addiction breaks the two apart, his spiral ending in a deadly overdose in a public restroom.

From the French verb to remember, in English a souvenir is a memento or token that a person keeps from a place or an event for sentimental reasons. In the first film, it takes the form of the painting and the postcard of the painting that Anthony gives Julie. In the sequel, it takes on even deeper meaning. While The Souvenir is from the perspective of Julie, in the throes of her doomed romance, The Souvenir: Part II, takes a step back, allowing both Julie and the audience to see the cracks in the dream, to see the reality of the situation for all its painful truth. 

Many of the film’s strongest scenes lay bare these growing pains. In the wake of Anthony’s death, Julie is back in film school attempting to finish her thesis film. Having missed quite a lot of school, she has difficulty communicating her vision with her collaborators. In one tension-filled car ride, her cinematographer berates her for never making up her mind before they begin shooting. He needs a script he can follow, he needs to know what the lighting set up is going to be, and he needs her to stop changing her mind in the middle. Julie sits in silence, taking in the criticism while her producer (Jaygann Ayeh) attempts to calm the situation. You can almost see Byrne completely turn in on herself, her body squeezed as tightly into her seat as possible, her face telegraphing every single doubt she has about herself for all to see. 

Making a film is hard, and Hogg is here to show exactly how hard it can be. These scenes of strife on set are wonderfully contrasted as she visits the set of fellow directing student Patrick (Ayoade, chewing all the scenery), with whom she had a falling out. Patrick is so confident in his filmmaking he’s got a crew making a documentary about the making of his thesis. Savvy viewers will notice his film shares a resemblance to Julien Temple’s notorious musical bomb Absolute Beginners, a film with grandiose imagery that overshadowed its deeper message about racism in the U.K. Despite his confidence, Patrick has the same trouble communicating his vision, at one point yelling at his crew after receiving bland feedback. “Tell me what it makes you FEEL!” he begs them before storming off.

Julie must also battle with the advisory committee, who do not understand the changes she’s made to her film’s story; what was a straightforward drama is now a fantastical retelling of her time with Anthony. A well chosen souvenir evokes feelings in its owner, unlocks memories. Like Patrick, Hogg wants us to feel what she felt at this time in her life through her film, but similar to Julie, she is also using the medium of film to unlock her own memories. As she works on her thesis film, Julie struggles with what her recollections of Anthony make her feel, even questioning how much of what she felt was for him or for the idea of him. 

Julie’s mother Rosalind (a tender Tilda Swinton) occasionally turns up to help her daughter through this difficult time. At one point, Julie asks what her mother felt when Anthony died. “I felt through you,” she replies. Julie must find a way to make others feel through her films what she herself once felt. And through Julie, Hogg allows the audience to feel through these two films her own memories, her own growth, her own vision of the world as an artist. 

In The Souvenir, it was hard to watch Julie make such bad decisions for a man clearly careening to a bitter end. But by adding the distance of time and clarity of reflection, The Souvenir: Part II both softens the rough edges of its predecessor and brings the lessons found at the center of these memories into sharper focus. 

B

“The Souvenir: Part II” is out Friday in theaters.

  • Tags
  • movie review

Share this post:

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest E-mail
Marya Gates

Marya Gates

Related Posts
Review: <i>You Hurt My Feelings</i>
Kimber Myers
Reviews

Review: You Hurt My Feelings

May 25th, 2023
Review: <i>About My Father</i>
Craig D. Lindsey
Reviews

Review: About My Father

May 25th, 2023
Review: <i>Sanctuary</i>
Kimber Myers
Reviews

Review: Sanctuary

May 18th, 2023
Review: <i>The Master Gardener</i>
Jason Bailey
Reviews

Review: The Master Gardener

May 18th, 2023
Review: <i>The Mother</i>
Craig D. Lindsey
Reviews

Review: The Mother

May 11th, 2023
Review: <i>Blackberry</i>
Jason Bailey
Reviews

Review: Blackberry

May 11th, 2023
Trending
Aug 30th 9:00 AM
Looking Back

Harry & Son: Paul Newman’s Most Personal Film

May 24th 9:00 AM
Looking Back

The Dark Ocean Endures: Finding Nemo at 20

Jul 20th 9:00 AM
Looking Back

1990: The Year of Danny Elfman

May 16th 9:00 AM
Reviews

The Best Movies to Buy or Stream This Week: Knock at the Cabin, AIR, STILL, and More

Oct 27th 11:00 AM
Looking Back

Requiem for a Dream and The Ballad of Sara Goldfarb

May 30th 9:00 AM
Reviews

The Best Movies to Buy or Stream This Week: Being Mary Tyler Moore, Three Thousand Years of Longing, Night of the Hunter, and More

Jul 13th 9:00 AM
Looking Back

Rushmore: The Stealth Catcher in the Rye Movie

Apr 1st 9:15 AM
Looking Back

Classic Corner: Hud

May 20th 9:00 AM
Looking Back

Classic Corner: Coonskin

Jul 3rd 9:27 PM
Movies

Taylor Sheridan Is the Worst: A Woman’s Perspective

Looking for something else?
Generic selectors
Exact matches only
Search in title
Search in content
Post Type Selectors
cmpopcorn_white3.svg
  • Company
    • About Us
    • Contact
    • Writers Guidelines
  • Members
    • Login
    • SignUp
    • Forums
telephone icon [email protected]
envelope icon [email protected]edmarquee.com

© 2014- Crooked™ Publishing


Privacy Policy
Terms of Service

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}