Dragonfly assessment – haunting, genre-defying drama of lonely metropolis residing

Twenty years in the past, Paul Andrew Williams introduced himself as a sensible new British expertise together with his ferocious gangland image London to Brighton, and his creativity has continued in movie and TV ever since. His new movie is a haunted, social-realist drama with components of Mike Leigh but in addition moments of thriller and even horror. Williams isn’t shy of stabbing us with an old style soar scare in direction of the top, which in truth challenges the audiences with its refusal of categorisation. There are two excellent lead performances from Andrea Riseborough and Brenda Blethyn and an excellent supporting flip from Jason Watkins.

Dragonfly is about loneliness and alienation and in regards to the everlasting thriller of different folks, the concern of intimacy and the unknowable existence of city neighbours. Elsie, performed by Blethyn, is an older girl who is sort of able to unbiased residing in her bungalow, however a latest fall and an injured wrist has meant that her middle-aged son (Watkins), all too clearly to compensate for not visiting that usually, has paid for day by day visits from a personal company nurses. They’re overworked and never doing an particularly good job. Actually, she doesn’t want these nurses and by enduring them, Elsie is shouldering the burden of her son’s guilt.

In the meantime nextdoor neighbour Colleen, performed by Riseborough, is a continuingly unusual presence. She is a melancholy, withdrawn determine, evidently on advantages and residing along with her enormous American bull terrier, uncompromisingly named Sabre. Williams exhibits us that she is successfully residing in a sort of platonic relationship, or mariage blanc, with this canine; the movie periodically offers us startling pictures of Sabre’s colossal physique in a sort of home nakedness sprawled on Colleen’s mattress.

In a way which may be insidious or predatory or simply pleasant and compassionate, Colleen befriends Elsie; the latter overcomes her preliminary nervousness of Sabre and he or she appreciates Colleen’s forthright supply of assist. Colleen goes all the way down to the retailers to get groceries for Elsie and after a couple of such journeys they agree that what could be best could be if Colleen merely will get Elsie’s debit card and Elsie offers her the pin quantity. In fact, the movie permits us to suspect the worst after which suspect the worst of ourselves for suspecting it. Colleen appears to be sad and broken however well-meaning, particularly when she (for fun) buys them each a two-way radio to allow them to simply preserve in touch – however then makes use of this radio to speak to Elsie late at evening and semi-intentionally to permit bewildered Elsie to listen to what’s occurring in Colleen’s home.

It’s a riveting twin portrait of two gloomy individuals who actually have, in a wierd and dysfunctional manner, discovered a brand new manner of interacting and – importantly – this can be a triangular relationship: Elsie, Colleen and the huge Sabre. However with a horrible inevitability, Elsie’s uptight busybody son John (Watkins) arrives and there are terrible penalties to a dialog he has with Colleen which Williams solely exhibits us in lengthy shot, withholding the reality about what he’s saying. It’s a stark, fierce, splendidly acted movie.