The Souvenir

The best thing about film clubs during lockdown is surely being forced to watch films that would ordinarily make you say, no way man, not for me.

I am someone that loves to judge a book by its cover and The Souvenir is a film that I would pass in a heartbeat. I would think rom com about posh people, yawn. A film about privileged attractive Londoners acted by privileged attractive Londoners. Double yawn. What can I say, I am a bit allergic to rom coms.

Okay, the film is great and let me tell you why.

The film is about the director when she was in her mid-20s, living in Knightsbride and starting film school in London in the early 80s. She meets a slightly older man at a house party and begins what is possibly her first serious love affair, which is filled with the types of emotions that you can only feel as a 20-something woman.

It is fascinating to watch. He is mature, aloof, confident. She is unsure, insecure, nervous. You notice small details like how she starts dressing a little older. She is eating in the Strand hotel with him. They go to the opera in Venice. She is needy and forgiving around a man that could be better, but she loves him and he does love her in his own peculiar kind of way.

I did feel at times that the director’s memory of how she acted in the past was less generous than perhaps she could have been. But then, I am also not fond of my own memories of my behaviour in my first serious relationship and I must admit to cringing a lot through the film about my own past. I was often angry at the woman but she was in love, and who hasn’t done things or not done things they regret at that age? Phew, glad I have grown up now.

The film is quite simply beautiful. So many scenes could have been carefully curated photo shoots out of Face magazine (if it existed back then). The dialogue is authentic, the silences are real. Above all, the acting is incredibly good, I am surprised not to have seen the lead actor before or since then, she is Tilda Swinton’s daughter so I don’t know, maybe she is currently living in a flat in Knightsbridge making excuses for a shitty man.

A must watch, I loved it and am still thinking about it and quite frankly, what more do you want from a film.

Enjoy!