X
- 2021
- R
- A24
- 1 h 47 m
- 2021
- R
- A24
- 1 h 47 m
Summary In the aftermath of her tumultuous relationship with a charismatic and manipulative older man, Julie begins to untangle her fraught love for him in making her graduation film, sorting fact from his elaborately constructed fiction.
Directed By: Joanna Hogg
Written By: Joanna Hogg
- 2021
- R
- A24
- 1 h 47 m
- 2021
- R
- A24
- 1 h 47 m
The Souvenir: Part II
6.0
Where to Watch
Summary In the aftermath of her tumultuous relationship with a charismatic and manipulative older man, Julie begins to untangle her fraught love for him in making her graduation film, sorting fact from his elaborately constructed fiction.
Directed By: Joanna Hogg
Written By: Joanna Hogg
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 39 Critic Reviews
90
95% Positive
37 Reviews
37 Reviews
5% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Universal Acclaim
Based on 39 Critic Reviews
90
95% Positive
37 Reviews
37 Reviews
5% Mixed
2 Reviews
2 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
It’s a beguiling work from a master of her craft that holds the art of filmmaking in its piercing gaze, and speaks to an uncompromising vision of what cinema can be with a little faith and imagination.
Raw, powerful, and tonally balanced, The Souvenir Part II brings the fraught tale of a young, grieving artist to a wonderful, empowering finish.
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 25 User Ratings
6.0
56% Positive
14 Ratings
14 Ratings
20% Mixed
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
24% Negative
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
User Score
Mixed or Average
Based on 25 User Ratings
6.0
56% Positive
14 Ratings
14 Ratings
20% Mixed
5 Ratings
5 Ratings
24% Negative
6 Ratings
6 Ratings
'The Souvenir: Part II" goes full meta and emerges as a cathartic experience: filmmaking as a way of healing. Joanna Hogg delivers a fascinating screenplay that is translated to the screen most creatively. This multilayered masterpiece reaches its climax with a dream (?) sequence that blurs the line between fiction and reality, concluding with a brilliant shot. And then there's Honor Swinton-Byrne, who embodies in every way what her mother represents for acting. There's no doubt that she inherited Tilda Swinton's gift. Both parts of 'The Souvenir' define an exercise of assimilating pain and transforming it into art. Oh, and the soundtrack is amazing.
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The distinctive British filmmaker is at the height of her powers in this semiautobiographical work.
This second part is lighter, more playful, growing in confidence along with its protagonist, in a terrific performance from Byrne. But it’s also full of gentle, cherished acts of memory . . . that build up powerful reminders of the past.
Joanna Hogg’s film is a work of understated warmth, profound emotional complexity, and eminently British dry humor.
The entire construction of The Souvenir: Part II, the connection between its drama and Julie’s student film, reflects an earnest and principled, if simplistic, didacticism about the pain and the privilege that allow aesthetic pleasure to be created.
The first film seemed a fully formed, lived-in world. The sequel leaves Julie on her own; an interior monologue that Hogg, and Swinton Byrne, can’t quite externalize.
In 2019, The Souvenir received near-uniform acclaim from the so-called especializad critic, and when I actually watched the film, I was quite surprised at how sterile it actually was.
It's nothing new of course, the critics and I don't usually see eye to eye, but that the same thing happened to me with both films, makes me wonder if it was really me who missed something.
I'm not sure what prompted the director to believe this story deserved a sequel.
Nothing in the first part's story hinted that anything more was needed. But here we are, and bottom line what I couldn't get out of my mind is that The Souvenir Part II is basically the idealization of post-tragedy events.
Writer/director Joanna Hogg picks up this story based on her real life right where the first film ended. But this one focuses, as expected, on how her main character processes her emotions over the loss she suffered in the first film, but this is where the fundamental flaw of the film is revealed and this has to do with her character and her own internal conflicts, both personal and professional with her working on her thesis as a film student, the whole in-depth monologue may have more than clear meaning to its creator, but what about the viewers?
Joanna Hogg exposes an interesting story that unfortunately neither she, nor her protagonist manage to externalize in a way that means more than what it means to her.
It's still a good film, and I actually liked it better than the first part, but I also think that a lot of the praise received is undeserved.
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The Emperor; naked and unwashed. It’s perfectly obvious that the characters in this film are presented as avant-garde and self obsessed bores. I found it embarrassing to behold because you’re forced to accept the characters’ self destructive behaviour as acceptable. In this unreal world most people smoke heavily and hold their cigarettes as a flag of supposed sophistication with nobody aware they’re headed for a future drowning in their own phlegm. The Loachesque free flow of overlapping conversations comes across as just copying Loach and is just annoying and uninteresting. I cannot believe this ever got made! In this ghastly world, pale and ghastly people wander about like a population made up of escapees from a psych ward. Nothing normal happens here, despite the thin veil of an attempt at normality by letting the cast free to improvise, the viewer has to observe stupid people pretending they’re tortured geniuses. The only torture actually happening is the poor audience on the rack. Unbelievably, and presumably too weak to counter the first critic who sees this as an opportunity to say the emperor is robed in light, all junior critics join in the nonsense. Even after his arrest for public indecency these people are in denial and are queuing up to visit the deluded monarch in the local loony bin. Not buying it.
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BORING yet another stupid naval gazing self congratulatory crap film that the critics love for some reason. Don’t waste your time or money.
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Production Company
BBC Film,
British Film Institute (BFI),
Sikelia Productions,
Protagonist Pictures,
Element Pictures,
JWH Films,
BFI Film Fund
Release Date Oct 29, 2021
Duration 1 h 47 m
Rating R
Tagline The film about a film about a life and the return of old friends and old lovers
Awards
British Independent Film Awards
• 3 Wins & 9 Nominations
London Critics Circle Film Awards
• 2 Wins & 5 Nominations
Montclair Film Festival (MFF)
• 1 Win & 2 Nominations
