Nothing Personal

Nothing Personal is a film built on silence not the empty kind, but the kind that speaks.

Its simple setup creates a story that moves quietly, without exposition, allowing gestures, glances, and landscapes to replace words. Every frame feels honest ...the wind, the light, the space between them. It's less about what's said than what's not.

Both actors deliver subtle, grounded performances. Anne is magnetic, hiding a world of pain and strength behind her silence. Martin balances her with calm tenderness. Together they create a fragile intimacy ...two broken people who understand each other too late.

The cinematography captures Ireland as a mirror of isolation: endless green fields, grey skies, and still air. The natural sound design ...footsteps, wind, the rustle of clothes ...replaces music. You feel the coldness, the loneliness, and sometimes the peace.

Yet the film's strength is also its weakness. Its restraint and slow rhythm create an atmosphere of purity, but also emotional distance. We never fully enter Anne's past or Martin's heart; we only witness their surfaces. For some, this silence feels profound ...for others, it feels empty.

Still, Nothing Personal lingers after it ends. It's a quiet portrait of two souls searching for meaning in solitude ...a story that reminds us how closeness can exist even when words do not.

Belying its' title, 'Nothing Personal' is clearly a very personal film. Set on the west coast of Ireland, this two-hander explores the decision to leave virtually everything behind and offers a study of loneliness and reconnection through a gradual re-building of trust. With strong performances from both leads, I was increasingly absorbed as their characters unfolded, and the film is at its' best in the gentle humour and the slowly developing relationship between them; there are some lovely touches and moments, like stopping the wind blowing through the grass.

Unfortunately this undoubted emotional engagement seems to have come at the expense of narrative coherence. Whilst I don't expect everything handed to me on a plate, it felt quite an uphill struggle trying to follow the Director's clues about what was actually happening. I couldn't quite work out if the chronology was chopped up or not, and I felt the main device of leaving history unspoken between the pair was unnecessarily allowed to overwhelm plot lucidity at times, leaving me with too many unanswered questions for it to be a consistently rewarding experience; I look forward to reading the future IMDb message board musings of more perceptive viewers. I suspect the film will be compared to Ondine – similar location and 'strong, mysterious, beautiful foreigner' theme –and whilst undoubtedly more cerebral and emotionally resonant, it's a shame that its' increasing tendency to veer into a somewhat perplexing swamp rather lets it down.

If you have a penchant for 'hands swirling round in seaweed' close-ups, then this is certainly the film for you – otherwise, despite its' spirit and intrigue, the level of confusion means that for me, it won't stay in the memory for too long.

With additional dialogue the entire complexion of the film would have changed. And as a matter of fact, from a couple of critic reviews, I had gone in thinking there was to be much less than there actually was. The natural sounds become much more noticeable and meaningful, and are a plus for enjoyment. Rea is one of today's great actors, and one of the few very recognizable names that when you see him on screen, he takes over his character and you then see less of 'him.' Verbeek was 27 at the time, having just graduated from theater-school a year earlier. She is remarkable and I'll seriously look forward to seeing her once again... same for the writer-director. It's a small, simple little little film, but you'll find yourself think about it long after viewing it... and it will never age.

A unique storyline that captures the viewer's attention, wondering what these two will make of each other where primarily neither want to relate intimately with anyone else. A very interesting film in terms of every unspoken gesture, facial expression and events-packed silence. Part of the fascination is the viewer constantly wondering, "What will happen between them next?"

And it is this tension that makes for a total attention. Can they love? Will they connect? Who will open up first? Why were they so alienated in the first place?

Yes, a very existentialist piece reminiscent of Bergman movies, perhaps; certainly treating similar themes. By the end of this film, I was half in love with 'You', the female protagonist. Yup, it really got to me. Maybe you too.

This movie is the director's ultimate fantasy. Through the brat girl, she projects not only her puerile attempt of rebelling against goodness on account of her own problems, but also her biggest one: her overwhelming and shameless oedipal desires toward her own father, in the image of the man, who, by the way, happens to be alone, sensitive, compassionate despite her millennial tantrums. The perfect ending to the fantasy (after she lies naked next to the dead "father", romanticizing thus consumation of the act), is that they won't have to live a real life together and he leaves all to her. Predictable,