Film: 'The Souvenir'

Every so often comes a film which seems intended to test one's patience, in this case for a purposeless two full hours. I honestly start to wonder if the makers are in reality laughing up their sleeves at what superficially some might take to be an 'artistic' masterwork, though they are fully  conscious of having come out with a product of pure junk to demonstrate just how gullible some are. There is always, of course, another possibility, namely that I am simply too dim to appreciate this film's 'grace' and 'subtleties'. In which case I'm the loser. I'll leave this potential explanation hanging in the air.   

I'm almost too bored to give a precis of this, but the bare bones of it are that a mid-20s film student (Honor Swinton Byrne) is in a live-in chalk-and-cheese relationship with a slightly older man (Tom Burke) in London, the latter always cadging money off her - and worse, as a development shows.  He falls prey to a drug habit while she tries to keep them together (Why? - one is bound to ask) as well as juggling with her film work. Also in the cast is Tilda Swinton, playing the young woman's mother, something she actually is in real life. 

There seems to be no clearly aimed direction of the film. It could have ended at any point and it wouldn't have made much difference. Indeed, if it had shut down after a regular 90 mins then that could have been an advantage.  

Director and screenplay writer Joanna Hogg seems to be about as bored with the whole affair as I was. A big mystery is how someone of the eminence of Martin Scorsese came to be roped in as executive producer, though I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. The film is already forgotten..................3.

(IMDb..............6.6 / Rott. Toms..................2.1 )