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).

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.

"Silver Haze" is a beautiful example of how the cinema still didn't run out of new creative ideas for coming-of-age films. Sacha Polak, the director, succeeds with her 4th feature film and her 2nd colaboration with Vicky Knight in creating an unmistakably small-town English aesthetic with depiction of struggling lower-class society. Vicky Knight shines brithly in the leading role with her rusty voice and cockney accent as she works her way through every part of Franky's story. From childhood trauma (both physical and mental), dealing with loss, discovering your true self and your sexuality (LGBTQ+), losing a family while gaining a new one "Silver Haze" presents a clear vision in all its aspects and leads the audience to a perfect closure at the end. I also have to mention simple yet intimate cinematography and a very fitting soundtrack, that pairs perfectly with what is happening in the film.

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.

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.

The film is filmed in the style of 'fly on the wall', or graphic documentary style. And given the subject matter and stated storyline, that's not the best way to do it.

It presents southern English people as common, uneducated, ungracious people with no manners or courtesy and not even able to speak English properly. That for me takes away form the central story and starts to take on the role of a social commentary on the way people live in Britain.

In the first half of the film there are only 2 references to a fire, so rather than Frankie's search for the truth of what happened to her, the first half of the film is nothing but anti-social behaviour, swearing, arguments and graphic, but completely unnecessary lesbian sex.

I'm sitting here at the half way stage still waiting for the story to start and for someone to be able to speak English.

I've given it a 2 and that's more than it's worth.