Over the past decade, auteur-driven powerhouse A24 has emerged as the perfect counterpoint to Marvel Studios. Whereas Marvel provides all the big-budget spectacle and franchise crossovers that blockbuster fans could hope for, A24 focuses on originality and experimentation over time-tested formulas. A24 is responsible for some of the most widely acclaimed movies of the 2010s:Ex Machina,The Witch,The Lobster,Moonlight,Lady Bird,Hereditary,Eighth Grade,Midsommar,The Farewell,Uncut Gems– the list goes on. Most recently, the studio made its first game-changing stamp on the 2020s with the multiversal madness ofEverything Everywhere All at Once.
A24 is pumping out so many masterpieces that some of them inevitably fall by the wayside and struggle to attract a mainstream audience, despite universal acclaim and lucrative indie cred. Viewers tend to pick up on the genre movies –“elevated horror” films likeHereditaryand sci-fi thrillers likeEx Machina– but the more people-centric dramas don’t always catch on.The Souveniris a prime example. Written and directed by Joanna Hogg, it’s a semi-autobiographical two-parter about the ambition of filmmaking and the pitfalls of toxic romance. The lead character, Julie, is played by Honor Swinton Byrne and her mother, Rosalind, is played by the actor’s real-life mother, the great Tilda Swinton. Julie is a film student who wants to make a movie about a boy and his mother. She meets a charming older man, Anthony, played by Tom Burke, and quickly falls in love.
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Anthony moves into Julie’s flat and they briefly enjoy an idyllic honeymoon phase before the dark truths start to come out. Julie’s life comes crumbling down when she realizes Anthony is an emotionally unstable drug addict. The movie offers a heartbreaking deep dive into a toxic relationship, exploring the myriad reasons why people end up staying with people who are bad for them. There’s a lot of manipulation and gaslighting, and an uncompromising portrayal ofthe horrors of withdrawals and relapses. Unsurprisingly,The Souvenirends in tragedy, and it becomes a mother-daughter story as Rosalind provides Julie with much-needed stability and emotional support.
The tragic ending ofThe Souvenirsets the stage for the continuation of Julie’s story inThe Souvenir Part II.The Souvenir Part IIisn’t a traditional sequel. The usual model for sequels is to repeat the first movie’s formula if it makes money.The Souvenir Part IIismore likeKill Bill: Volume 2. It’s the second half of the story that resolves all the emotional arcs left up in the air by the shocking conclusion of the first one. Hogg conceivedThe Souvenir Parts IandIIas a diptych. A diptych is technically a painting across two wooden panels that are connected by a hinge, but the meaning of the word has evolved over the years as new art forms have popped up. The term “diptych” is now broadly used to describe two artworks that are joined at the middle; they both stand alone, but also complement each other. This perfectly describes the self-reflexivetwo-part narrativeof theSouvenirduology.
AfterThe Souvenirdug into the ups and downs of Julie’s relationship with Anthony – the lies, the manipulation, the emotional abuse –Part IIdug into the aftermath of that relationship. Julie deals with the traumas and trust issues left behind by this unhealthy, ultimately doomed romance. She retools her film project to tell the story of that relationship, which adds a self-aware angle to the narrative. Despite beinga movie about making a movie,The Souvenir Part IIdoesn’t fall too far down the meta rabbit hole. It has the same sobering realism and beautifully humanist storytelling that made the first movie such a gem.
Filmmaking is the conduit through which Julie expresses herself – and, of course, the conduit through which her creator expresses herself. In dramatizing her relationship with Anthony, Julie has to analyze every last detail of it. She picks apart the layers of Anthony’s emotionally abusive behavior as she directs the performance of the actor playing his cinematic avatar. Julie’s movie is the dramatic counterpart toJerry Seinfeld and George Costanza’s sitcom-within-a-sitcom.
Hogg earned stellar reviews for her firstSouvenirfilm and managed to stick the landing with the follow-up, which brings Julie’s journey to a satisfying conclusion and closes the book on the lingering traumas that remain from the first movie’s toxic love story. They may not have gottenany love from the Academy, but bothThe SouvenirandThe Souvenir Part IIseized the top spot inSight & Sound’s annual poll for the best movie of the year in their respective years of release, and the first one won the World Cinema Dramatic Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.The Souvenirduology is moving, ambitious, and deeply personal, and every movie fan should do themselves a favor and give it a watch.
