Unrelated

'Unrelated' has an intriguing premise: a forty-something woman, on the run from an unhappy relationship, takes refuge in a Tuscan villa with an old (but not, it seems, particularly close) friend; and in fact, prefers to spend her time with the younger generation, perhaps trying to re-imagine the youth that got away. There's lots of potential here, and some acute observation, but also some flatness: director Joanna Hogg skilfully captures the mood of a particularly awful house-party, but it's not the sort of place that feels particularly enticing, and the combination of Anna's stupidity and the spoiled obnoxiousness of the beautiful youths who entrance her make for an unappealing and painful combination. If the story falls short of neat conclusions, it also falls short of what normally defines a good story - and the excessive use of static camera shots, leaving the viewer like a guest who'd rather be somewhere else, isn't especially subtle. Overall, this might have been better at half the length: there are some worthwhile ideas, but scene after scene of Anna sitting, painfully on the edge of a social gathering, feels unnecessary.

Unrelated (2007) is a movie from the UK written and directed by Joanna Hogg.

Kathryn Worth portrays Anna, a woman in her 40's. She travels to a Italy to stay with an old friend and her friend's family. There are two groups at the villa--the Olds and the Youngs.

Anna hangs out with the Youngs, where she clearly doesn't belong. They're not a particularly wholesome group--spoiled, careless, and seeking pleasure and danger in equal measures.

Unfortunately, the Olds could be described in the same way. There's not a single one among them that's not spoiled and careless. (They don't do dangerous stunts, but they probably did them when they were younger.)

Of course, Tuscany is beautiful, and the movie is interesting in its own way, but, unless you're a Johanna Hogg fan, I don't recommend it.

Unrelated has an IMDb rating of 6.7. I agreed, and rated it 7.

"Hogg's disinterested agglomeration of realism and gradualism is not novel (many an auteur flourishes on various soils with similar felicity, like Hong Sang-soo, Kelly Reichardt, whose names are just off the top of my head), but it is practical in terms of filmmaking, the camera is static, settings are simple, score-free, no extra-lighting needed, even during nighttime, it has a point-and-shoot expediency of a cottage industry. Distilling human activities exclusively through her rigid frame, both films reveal truth with a clinical discernment. Anna's step-by-step abandon meets with a cavalier response, Oakley is a tease, he knows how to titillate the opposite sex and will not let Anna off his hook before she capitulates, then, to her utter chagrin, he walks away like a champion, and naturally this chapter is closed, Oakley hones his skill of enchantment, but Anna receives a blow to her already distressed middle-age crisis, casual cruelty is blithely exposed. Then, you might not sympathize with Anna, because she is blinded by vanity and obviously operates against her best judgement, also Hogg really foregrounds a 24-year-old Hiddleston's hedonistic youthfulness (even the camera forgoes its immobility trying to catch his exuberance and Adonis gorgeousness), and it is always takes two to tango, at her mature age, Anna should've known better."

read my full review on my blog: Cinema Omnivore, thanks.

If you wanted a villa holiday in Tuscany this summer and didn't have time, go to this film and by the end you will feel you have spent a fortnight there. Joanna Hogg has created an upper-middle class version of a Mike Leigh film at his slowest. It's beautifully done, and the fortnight is mostly enjoyable, unless you squirm at the sight of drunken Brits abroad or the sound of the upper-middle classes (I developed a thick skin for both of these a long time ago, myself).

The characterisation is subtle, verging on invisible. There's very little intellectual content or sparkling conversation, surely unrealistic in a film about the chattering classes? Perhaps it's the prodigious amount of alcohol that's consumed. All this keeps the focus on Anna, on holiday from her unhappy situation at home, and the cheerfully pie-eyed teenagers that she hangs out with.

The movie was very thin on plot, yet there did seem to be inconsistencies on the departure date for some of the party. I doubt I'll watch it again to check this though; once is nice, but enough.

I'll start right off by saying this movie won't be for everyone. It's a very slow movie, the kind where you're watching people NOT say things for hours and where there's minimal plot. But it's also the type of movie where if you connect with the characters you REALLY connect with them and for me it was a pleasure to spend time with these characters.

The main character of Hogg's Unrelated is Anna a woman who is in the early stages of middle age. Anna and her husband have been invited by her oldest friend Verena to join Verena's family and extended family (made up of three adults and four teenagers) in a villa in the Italian countryside where they spend their summers. Only Anna shows up without her partner and soon enough, rather than spend time with the "olds" Anna is adopted into the friend group of the "youngs", the teens that are young enough to be her children. Drinking and getting high irresponsibly she forms a light flirtation with Oakley, the ring leader of the pack who, despite his youth, has an air of authority and control which stands out in contrast to the somewhat shy and nervous Anna.

For those willing to give Unrelated a chance I will say that is one of the finest meditations on adulthood, particularly adult womanhood, I've ever seen. If the first half of the film is Anna drifting about with the youngs, innocently capturing a youth she never quite had, the second half is her painful growing up.