Lynne Ramsay (Female Filmmaker February pt. VII)

Morvern Callar

You Were Never Really Here

Hello and happy belated Lunar New Year, my 绿茶婊! (I took three years of Mandarin and yet all I can remember is “green tea bitch”, go figure.) In these unprecedented, unnerving times, watching movies has never felt more essential to maintaining my mental health. I went to the movies three times last week, four times the week before that, and when I was at home, I was still mostly just watching movies. Now could a mentally unhealthy person do that?? Don’t answer that… It’s still Female Filmmaker February, and this week I wanted to explore an auteur who seems to perfectly understand the feral, unkempt woman that both Ida Lupino and Elaine May championed, a filmmaker with a fascinating point of view and a gargantuan amount of guts: Lynne Ramsay. Not too long ago, I finally watched Lynne Ramsay’s film We Need to Talk About Kevin, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. Not just because of the riveting performances or the interesting narrative and framing choices, but because of the decision to tell this risky story in the first place. Lynne Ramsay has the audacity to cover somber, salacious, dangerous subject matter, and she does so with zero apologies or pretense or compromising. Born to working class parents in Glasgow, Scotland on December 5th, 1969, Ramsay was seemingly an artist from the get-go. I say “seemingly” because it was actually quite difficult to find personal details about Lynne Ramsay and her history. Her debut short film, Small Deaths, won the 1996 Cannes Film Festival Short Film Prix du Jury, and later that year she began work on her next short film, titled Kill the Day. Her next short, Gasman, caught the eye of BBC Scotland’s Ruth McCance, who approached Ramsay to write a treatment for a feature film. This became Ramsay’s debut feature, Ratcatcher, which released in 1999 and won her the BAFTA for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director, or Producer. Ramsay would go on to create several more gripping, gritty films that would cement her status as a fearless artist, but would also complicate a few projects during their development(s). Much like the directors we’ve already covered this month, Lynne Ramsay’s devotion to her vision and aversion to outsider intrusion made her highly-respected but somewhat difficult. In 2001, it was announced that Ramsay was slated to direct the adaptation of Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, which she had read in manuscript form prior to its publication. But when the book became a global bestseller, Ramsay suddenly faced far more pressure and competition than she’d anticipated. Then Film4, which had signed her onto the project, was massively downsized and the head of the company replaced Ramsay with Peter Jackson, fresh off the hype of The Lord of The Rings. Ramsay has described this confrontation with the film industry as a “David and Goliath situation”, which she would face once again in 2012, when she was slated to direct Jane Got a Gun—a project she left because the producers insisted upon a happy ending. The only “fun facts” I gathered about Lynne Ramsay is the fact that she’s 5"2', and she had a baby in Athens in 2015. I aspire to be that level of mysterious and unknowable, while somehow also being well-known and revered, but for now let me continue to be loud and visible and all-too-knowable, as we explore two of her most iconic films.

Let’s begin not with her initial feature, but with the memorably moody film that followed: this her 2002 film Morvern Callar. Based on Alan Warner’s novel of the same name, the film introduces us to an curiously-named young woman named Morvern Callar (played by Samantha Morton), who works at a grocery store and lives with her boyfriend in a small town in Scotland. We meet Morvern as she is snuggling her boyfriend in their small but cozy apartment, on what can only be a frightfully chilly December night. Then, suddenly, Morvern awakens on the cold, hard ground, the warm glow of the Christmas tree flashes comforting colors, and her boyfriend lies stiff and still nearby in the doorway of the kitchen. As Morvern inspects her lover, we see fresh blood streaming from his wrist, and the only other light source in the flat—a computer—which flashes Alice in Wonderland-esque text that commands “Read Me.” Morvern approaches the screen and scrolls down, where more text reads: “Sorry, Morvern. Don’t try to understand, it just felt like the right thing to do. I love you. Be brave.” Morvern opens the Christmas gifts her boyfriend left for her, observes a shiny new lighter, a portable tape-player, and a mixtape labeled “music for you”, before taking a bath, putting on makeup, grabbing some cash from her boyfriend’s pocket, and going out on the town with her bestie, Lanna. Morvern appears only slightly disturbed as she gets drinks at the pub, dodges chavvy blokes, and catches up with her friend. A regular at the pub asks, “What have you done with Dostoyevsky tonight?”, to which Morvern responds, “He’s at home.” The girlies party until daybreak, then nurse their hangovers at Lanna’s nan’s house, where Morvern eventually tells Lanna, “He left me.” Lanna assures Morvern that he’s probably just in “one of his moods”, but Morvern is assured that he’s not coming back. At work, a coworker tells Morvern, “Don’t worry, he’ll be back, tail tucked between his legs”, but back at home, Morvern still has not dealt with the corpse of her lover, nor the pool of blood that has grown significantly. Morvern goes back to the computer, reads his suicide note more properly, and finds a list of requests: “My novel is on the disk. Print it out and send it to the first publisher on the list, if they will not take it try the next one down. I wrote it for you.” Without much consideration, Morvern locates her boyfriend’s novel, erases his name, changes the text to say “A Novel by Morvern Callar”, and sends it off to the publishers. Suddenly motivated, Morvern cleans up the blood, Febreezes the shit out of the place, and dismembers her boyfriend’s body, before disposing of his parts deep in the mountains. Morvern hears good news back from the publishers in an unrealistically fast fashion, but she can’t go to London to meet with them just yet, because she decided to take the money her boyfriend left for a funeral and use it to fund a girl’s trip to Spain—where things only get messier. While I can certainly relate to procrastination and spending time with my friends instead of dealing with my problems, it’s this specific moment that I found to be the least relatable. Sure, Morvern, don’t tell anyone your boyfriend killed himself, don’t call the cops, go ahead and steal his novel and take the credit and money, but don’t skip town just as you’re about to make a lot more money!! Much of this film is full of dread and dismal settings, and yet I found the entire thing to be unbelievably compelling. The cinematography is electric, the soundtrack is incredible and unexpected, and its unpredictable female protagonist forces you to keep your eyes firmly on the screen. It is an intriguing story, told in a completely pulse-pounding and peculiar way, but I should’ve known this would be the case, given Lynne Ramsay’s proclivity for making subversive, complicated films.

Similarly complicated but all-too-relevant is tonight’s next film, a psychological neo-noir thriller from 2017: this is You Were Never Really Here. Based on Jonathan Ames’ novella of the same name, You Were Never Really Here featured a bigger budget, a more-well-known setting, and an A-list lead actor, and yet it has the same small, uncomfortably-intimate feeling that Morvern Callar had. We are introduced to a typically-erratic and disheveled Joaquin Phoenix as Joe: an ex-military gun-for-hire who specializes in saving victims of sex-trafficking. Hoodie-clad and hammer in hand, we first meet Joe as he cleans up a job he just finished, then watch him approach an airport payphone, where he tells the person on the other line, “It’s done.” Suddenly, Joe is back home, at a lovely little house that he shares with his mother. Joe and his mom have a really sweet, funny dynamic, where they can joke with each other and critique each other with the same amount of love. The next day, Joe reports to his contact, who gives him another mission. Senator Albert Votto’s daughter has gone missing, and since he’s running for Governor, he doesn’t want all the press that a large police presence would stir up. Votto’s request to Joe is simple: “I want you to hurt them.” So Joe stakes out the location as glimmers of abominable memories flash in his mind—warzones, deaths, U-Hauls full of bruised underaged girls, and the abuse he himself suffered as a child. Eventually Joe spots an errand boy, apprehends him, and gains the intel he needs before entering the building, hammer blazing. Joe successfully takes out the men guarding this joint, and finds the Senator’s daughter, Nina, who is extremely out of it, but still alive. Joe and Nina, exhausted and traumatized, wait together for the Senator to come take her home, but instead they are met with police officers who shoot Joe and take Nina with them. Joe survives, but is left with more questions than answers. Pretty soon, Joe’s entire vigilante operation is compromised, and he learns just how wealthy, powerful, and protected these pedophiles are. But Joe won’t rest until his mission is complete, and Nina is safe. I can’t say what it might’ve been like to watch this film when it came out in 2017, but watching it in 2026, fresh off of the release and attempted-redirection of the Epstein files by the administration of pedophiles running the country, it is positively chilling to watch unfold. These brothels of underaged girls really exist, and the people who frequent them, fund them, mingle within them, very much exist, so it was refreshing, albeit painful, to see a film confront this reality so explicitly. I’m not even the biggest Joaquin Phoenix fan, but it was pretty cathartic to watch him beat pedophiles and their protectors to death with hammers. It’s the most clear-cut and satisfying Lynne Ramsay film that I’ve seen, and yet it is still muddy, morose, and a bit meandering at times. I suppose it comes with the territory of a story about a severely traumatized individual extracting other severely traumatized individuals, but You Were Never Really Here was a bit of a stressful bummer, that might’ve benefitted from a bit more detail and exposition—and yet I can understand why much of this story is left vague and universal. The boogeyman does exist, but it’s not just one entity: it is boardrooms and country clubs and shell companies and private islands full of boogeymen. This film barely scratches the surface of this fact, and yet I applaud it for saying anything at all. What really blows my mind about this film, is the fact that while Alessandro Nivola plays a powerful government official / pedophile, he was originally cast as a totally different character, and performed his completely-dialogue-free role under this belief. Then, midway through production, someone told him that Ramsay had decided that he was actually portraying a different character, which Nivola called the “the most fucked up, weird gaslighting experience I’ve ever had.” As a result, he refuses to watch the film, but he still describes Ramsay as, “…a legendary filmmaker. She’s a little nutty.” Though both of tonight’s films were anxiety-inducing and at times, tough to stomach, I was utterly enthralled, just as I am with all of Lynne Ramsay’s films (…except for maybe Die My Love, so sorry.) Thanks for reading along with me, my sweet readers. I hope you’ll join me next week for the finale of Female Filmmaker February. Until then, later girlies!