Silver Haze

This is Director Sacha Polak and lead actress Vicky Knight second film after 2019's Dirty God, about a young mother who disfigured after an acid attack. Both starring Vicky Knight, herself suffering bad burns when she was a child. Silver Haze seems to be the most based on her life, it also has her own real life family playing her on screen family (her real life young sister, Charlotte is especially good as her younger sister in this).

This is Vicky's film all the way, and she brings it as Franky. Esmé Creed-Miles (Samantha Morton is her mum) is really solid as Franky's troubled girlfriend. She's not always most likeable of characters and this film has quite a few. It's not a easy watch, the really closed in cinematography also adds to tension.

I hope Vicky Knight sticks to acting and maybe goes off and does something out her comfort zone. She's got a nice presence on screen. Creed-Miles although nowhere near the actress her mother was at her age (Morton was one of best acting talents of her generation) just give Florence a likeability.

I sadly doubt the film will get much traction and that be a shame. I do think it's better then it's IMDB rating right now (6.2 of right now).

Franky (Vicky Knight) is a nurse who's badly scarred by a fire that happened when she was a child (Knight herself was burned as a child - the scars are real). She believes the fire was started deliberately by her mother's friend, who's now in a relationship with her (Franky's) father from whom she's estranged. Fifteen years on, Franky still dreams of revenge.

In hospital, Franky meets Florence (Esme Creed-Miles), the survivor of a suicide attempt. The two develop a friendship, and later become lovers, though they later break up. Prompted by Florence, Franky's quest for revenge develops into something more tangible.

The rest of the cast have their own stories to tell: Franky's mother, who spends her entire life on the sofa; Franky's sister, who's dabbling with Islam (she has a shawl and a prayer mat, but hasn't cottoned on to the fact that she's no longer allowed alcohol); Florence's grandmother (the excellent Angela Bruce) who has terminal cancer: Florence's brother, who has learning difficulties...

It can't be said that any character in the film is less than three-dimensional, but for me this added up to too many sub-plots and an over-crowded film.

As a depiction of British working-class life it's sharp and observant (without stooping to poverty porn) and the acting is solid throughout - as is the direction.

The ending is not the on the viewer expects, and might leave some disappointed by its slightly ambiguous nature, but I thought it worked well.

I am moved to comment on one particular aspect and not the film in general, which was magnificent and has been reviewed well. The night I began watching Silver Haze I paused it about 40 minutes in and left it for about two weeks. It was the Florence character which disturbed me, and when I finally finished the film I felt utterly vindicated for being hesitant at seeing what happens with her. The signs were there early that this is a tragic person--what I would diagnose superficially as having symptoms consistent with borderline personality disorder. She says she's a bad person early in the film, and it brought a tear to my eye. The scene where she flips and tells the woman she's fallen in love with that she doesn't like her anymore made me ball shamefully, because it is so familiar. The splitting, the nature of love/intimacy to a borderline person is fleeting and turns as quickly to disgust as it developed into love. It's unstoppable, and I felt for both of them, especially Florence. It's one thing to be able to walk away from her, it's another to be inside her, feeling that always. Love and disgust are far too fluid for borderlines, this is something inescapable, and it's the reason why we're labeled by others and consider ourselves 'bad people', and why relationships are difficult at best. I am really happy that I watched it and I'm equally happy I left the final 40 for a time when I was better equipped to handle the content. 8/10.

It might seem reductive, considering that this is a deeply personal piece of filmmaking but there are shades in here of Clio Bernard, Andrea Arnold, Lynne Ramsay, Alan Clarke (who I think is the most direct companion to this work, from the at-time guttural sensitivity), with other works I'm reminded of including Naked, Mona Lisa, and Nil by Mouth.

This is a film that is difficult viewing for those that find themselves not necessarily refracted in the characters, but in the dynamics, tone, and mood, which can at times feel overwhelming.

The palliative care sequences were particularly gut-wrenching for me, and handled carefully.

The performances are almost feverish, as if dictated by, or caught in, circumstance,-and this does seem like a definitively unique contribution to filmmaking, that will over time, I imagine, be viewed with the same eyes as those that look back on a work like Nil by Mouth.

It seems slightly pointless to try to describe the story as a way into the film, since what this really feels like is delving headfirst into a study of complex dynamics that I don't think someone could have directed had they not gone through them.

There is a deep austerity to filmmaking rarely being done like this anymore.

Hospital nurse Franky (Vicky Knight) is covered with burn scars from a fire 15 years ago when she was a child. She meets troubled patient Florence (Esme Creed-Miles) who tried to commit suicide. She suspects her mother's friend having set the fire and it continues to haunt her.

This is an intriguing character. I wasn't sure if the scars are real. I figured that a low budget indie would have difficulty doing big-time prosthetics. She's a very compelling actress with a completely unique look. The lower budget does have one drawback. This is setting up for a flashback reveal of the fire during most of the movie. Of course, there is no way for them to film a full-blown bar fire on a limited budget. The movie misses not having that scene.