Lynne Ramsay
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Taxi Driver (1976)
Directed by Martin Scorsese
influenced You Were Never Really Here (2017)
Themes Plot Visuals Characters
And if nothing else, you can spend its running time recalling better movies it seems to pay tribute to — Taxi Driver, Hardcore, Mona Lisa, The Professional, Oldboy, Drive.
Focusing on a self-appointed vigilante out to save a young girl from the dark underbelly of new York, You Were Never Really Here will inevitably be compared to Taxi Driver, but, while many films have tried and failed to match the achievement of Scorsese’s early masterpiece, this one is good enough to earn the comparison.In both films, the lead performance is key.
It’s a nerve-shredding, artsploitation action picture, with Ramsay mixing and matching elements of Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” and John Boorman’s “Point Blank” to create something audaciously all her own.
There are many parallels between Lynne Ramsay's You Were Never Really Here and Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976).
The collision of sex trafficking and politics spells do-or-die stakes for all involved, and Joe’s maddening underworld descent into the very worst of human nature, where violence is the only language that matters, recalls Paul Schrader’s scripts for Taxi Driver and Hardcore.
Samsonov, whose role (especially paired with Phoenix’s) recalls Jodie Foster’s in “Taxi Driver,” is a heartbreaking Nina, bonded with Joe via PTSD.
The Bad Seed (1956)
Directed by Mervyn LeRoy
influenced We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)
Themes Characters
Other movies have told stories based around young men who lash out at society, but Ramsay blends the reality of that sort of situation with the type of bad kid horror subgenre seen in films such as "The Bad Seed," "The Omen" or "Orphan," only basing it in reality rather than doing it as a sensationalist genre film.
It's found in such brilliant short fictions as Henry James's The Turn of the Screw (filmed as The Innocents), Paul Bowles's Pages From Cold Point and, more recently, Doris Lessing's The Fifth Child, as well as horror movies such as The Bad Seed and The Omen and in real life in the James Bulger case.
Kevin is a horror movie trope -- ripped from movies like The Bad Seed, Village of the Damned, The Omen, and the recent Orphan -- far too menacing to be even remotely connected with anything real.
Motiveless malignancy in cinema youngsters is no rarity though, except for blood-will-out The Bad Seed, ordinarily from demonic possession.
From "The Bad Seed" to "The Omen" to "The Good Son," kids have been creeping us out for years.
As a result, "We Need to Talk About Kevin" comes across less like the powerful and profound drama that it clearly wants to be and more like an excruciatingly arty version of the old horror-exploitation standby of the killer kid, a trope that has been deployed in the past in works ranging from the Broadway-sanctified "The Bad Seed" to grindhouse insanity like "The Children" to mass-market takes like the Vera Farmiga vehicles "Joshua" and "Orphan."
It first entered mainstream cinema in Peter Bogdanovich's early film Targets (inspired by Charles Whitman's killing spree on the University of Texas campus in 1966), and has since been seen in Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine and Gus Van Sant's Elephant.
For that matter, the Columbine school-shooting story was better told in Gus Van Sant's Elephant (2003) and in the lesser-known Zero Day (2003).
There have been innumerable films made turning children and teens into vessels to be feared rather than fawned over (2007's " Joshua " is a recent unsung treasure), and ever since the tragic 1999 events at Columbine there have been almost as many exploring the cause-and-effect?or lack of solid answers?behind school violence (among them, 2002's unforgettable " Elephant " and 2008's " The Life Before Her Eyes ").
Films like Gus Van Sant’s “Elephant” and “Beautiful Boy” explore the impact of the horrific incidences that all stem from that terrible day in Columbine in 1999.
Ramsay stays anchored enough to avoid the drifty dream of say, Gus Van Sant’s similarly-themed Elephant but still, the film is dominated by the aesthetic impulse.
Gus Van Sant's Columbine-inspired Elephant, still the best film made on the subject, sidesteps that question in favor of an attempt to find meaning in the mundane details of the event as it plays out for the victims and the perpetrators.
Point Blank (1967)
Directed by John Boorman
influenced You Were Never Really Here (2017)
Visuals Themes Characters
It’s a nerve-shredding, artsploitation action picture, with Ramsay mixing and matching elements of Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” and John Boorman’s “Point Blank” to create something audaciously all her own.
Aside from Taxi Driver, you might also be reminded of John Boorman’s Point Blank and Luc Besson’s Leon, or perhaps even the Taken films.
You Were Never Really Here is closer in tone to John Boorman’s Point Blank (in its fanatic momentum) or Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (a near-maniac rescues a young girl).
He is also an implacable Walker, a hopped-up Lazarus like the undead protagonist of John Boorman’s Vietnam-era hired-gun hallucination “Point Blank” (1967).
Ramsay is riffing on a whole history of lean, mean, existential crime pictures: a little of the Lee Marvin man-on-a-mission art thriller Point Blank , a little of the nocturnal seductiveness of Drive , even a touch of Steven Soderbergh’s peerlessly cool L.A. revenge yarn The Limey .
The sounds of one scene spill into another, and there’s an efficient fluidity to the way Ramsay mingles Joe’s past with his current endeavors—shades of John Boorman’s Point Blank —but she never really explores Joe’s PTSD in any kind of fulfilling way.
Last year, Amy Adams starred in Nightbitch, another adaptation of a novel that looked at the pain associated with motherhood and postpartum depression.
…last year we saw Amy Adams howling at the moon as NIGHT BITCH…
Late last year, another literary adaptation of a struggling mother came and left theaters without much attention. Nightbitch used a body horror metaphor to depict the mental state of an unhappy woman (Amy Adams) as she confronted her unease over her identity.
…films like Tully and Nightbitch that occupy similar territory…
Die My Love is what you get if you make Nightbitch without worrying about being approachable.
…with an emerging canon presenting a more clear-eyed portrait of women buckling under domestic stress – in last year’s Nightbitch, this fall’s If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, and now Lynne Ramsay’s hallucinatory picture of postpartum depression, Die My Love.
And if nothing else, you can spend its running time recalling better movies it seems to pay tribute to — Taxi Driver, Hardcore, Mona Lisa, The Professional, Oldboy, Drive.
At its best, You Were Never Really Here reminded me of one of the most underrated films of the 1980s, Neil Jordan’s Mona Lisa—only without peak Bob Hoskins or Michael Caine or anything more than the rudiments of a plot.
The Good Son (1993)
Directed by Joseph Ruben
influenced We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)
Characters
Although based on a novel by Lionel Shriver, it seems to be a direct descendant of The Bad Seed, the 1956 thriller with Patty McCormack's Oscar-nominated turn as a murderous moppet (let's not waste time on 1993's similarly themed The Good Son; as a homicidal brat, Macaulay Culkin was about as menacing as an inchworm).
(His pathological coldness recalls Macaulay Culkin’s character in “The Good Son.”) Kevin’s idea of playing with his younger sister (Ursula Parker) consists of turning the vacuum cleaner on her hair.
The second half of the movie tumbles with Maud down a spiral of female solitude and hallucinatory madness that invokes cinematic precedents as varied as Ingmar Bergman’s Persona , Roman Polanski’s Repulsion , and Lynne Ramsay’s Morvern Callar .
In its most piercing earthbound moments, “Saint Maud” even evokes the impressionistic human poetry of another shattered-woman study, Lynne Ramsay’s “Morvern Callar,” and not just because Clark has some of the young Samantha Morton’s moony, haunted ingenuousness.
It’s a performance that shares DNA with Samantha Morton in Morvern Callar and Catherine Deneuve in Repulsion : bold, uncompromising and vivid.
Aftersun (2022)
Directed by Charlotte Wells
influenced by Ratcatcher (1999), Gasman (1998), Morvern Callar (2002)
Visuals Plot
There’s more than a hint of the tactility of Lynne Ramsay’s early works, with short films such as Gasman (1997) and features such as Ratcatcher (1999) clearly serving as inspirations.
Aftersun can be compared with Ratcatcher since they were debut films that focused on young characters, had different storylines that take place in a certain area, and had the occasional artistic diversion.
There’s more than a hint of the tactility of Lynne Ramsay’s early works, with short films such as Gasman (1997) and features such as Ratcatcher (1999) clearly serving as inspirations.
As it is, Ms. Wells owes an incredible debt of gratitude to Lynne Ramsay’s vastly superior “Morvern Callar,” another Scottish movie about a young woman, haunted by her memories of an emotionally mysterious man, on an ill-advised cheap beach vacation.
It first entered mainstream cinema in Peter Bogdanovich's early film Targets (inspired by Charles Whitman's killing spree on the University of Texas campus in 1966), and has since been seen in Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine and Gus Van Sant's Elephant.
Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Directed by Roman Polanski
influenced We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011), Die My Love (2025)
Themes Visuals Plot
The harrowing adaptation of Ariana Harwicz’s novel aligns with titles like If I Had Legs I’d Kick You or Rosemary’s Baby, depicting motherhood not as this angelic blessing, but grueling entrapment.
The Academy ratio is an homage to Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby that gives the sensation of being boxed in…
The Academy ratio is an homage to Repulsion and Rosemary’s Baby…
The film is enlivened with spontaneity because of this unorthodox approach, and also a classical, hallucinatory horror vibe in the vein of 1968's "Rosemary's Baby."
Kevin (Ezra Miller) may not have his father's eyes, but Lynne Ramsay's adaptation of Lionel Shriver's novel rivals Rosemary's Baby, The Omen, and this year's Twilight installment as a negative advertisement for childbearing.
What would the baby of Rosemary’s Baby be like as a teenager?
Some actresses who have provided master classes playing women becoming unglued are Elizabeth Taylor in “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” (1966), Kathy Bates in “Misery” (1990) and Isabelle Adjani in “Possession” (1981), to name just a few.
…a classic Wife vs Husband meltdown à la Scenes from a Marriage or Possession…
I was reminded of both Possession — in which Isabelle Adjani’s character similarly begins descending into a sort of madness in a full-body visceral performance…
…a classic Wife vs Husband meltdown à la Scenes from a Marriage or Possession would be too tempting and familiar…
Not for the faint of heart, Ramsay's story of young girls stolen by powerful men nods to other recent powerful works with similar themes, like the 2011 Australian film Sleeping Beauty or the 2013 Israeli thriller Big Bad Wolves, minus their fairy-tale symbolism.
Not for the faint of heart, Ramsay’s story of young girls abducted by powerful men nods to other recent works with similar themes, such as the 2011 Australian film Sleeping Beauty, or the 2013 Israeli thriller Big Bad Wolves (minus their fairy tale symbolism).
A lot of actresses have won Oscars and never matched that career peak but Swinton has gotten even better since her Academy Award with stunning work in “Julia,” “I Am Love,” and, now, “We Need to Talk About Kevin.”
And they’re married to a remarkable score by Jonny Greenwood (fresh off his Oscar nomination for Phantom Thread ) that creates an unbearable atmosphere of mounting dread through electronic tones, percussive beats, natural urban-chaos noise and strident strings—the last of which are clearly modeled after Psycho, another thriller about a devoted son caring for his aged mother which, in fact, is watched by Joe’s mom (with Joe play-acting Norman Bates’ stabbing motions) early on in the film.
Psycho may be playing on the TV in the family home (one of several horror-movie nods), but this mother’s boy is no mere Norman Bates.
He swallows his pain via prescription pills and asphyxiation rituals and cares deeply for his elderly mother (a wonderful Judith Roberts) who we first meet watching Hitchcock's Psycho.
Big Bad Wolves (2013)
Directed by Navot Papushado
influenced You Were Never Really Here (2017)
Themes
Not for the faint of heart, Ramsay's story of young girls stolen by powerful men nods to other recent powerful works with similar themes, like the 2011 Australian film Sleeping Beauty or the 2013 Israeli thriller Big Bad Wolves, minus their fairy-tale symbolism.
Not for the faint of heart, Ramsay’s story of young girls abducted by powerful men nods to other recent works with similar themes, such as the 2011 Australian film Sleeping Beauty, or the 2013 Israeli thriller Big Bad Wolves (minus their fairy tale symbolism).
Léon: The Professional (1994)
Directed by Luc Besson
influenced You Were Never Really Here (2017)
Characters Themes
And if nothing else, you can spend its running time recalling better movies it seems to pay tribute to — Taxi Driver, Hardcore, Mona Lisa, The Professional, Oldboy, Drive.
There’s a little bit of Jean Reno’s “The Professional” in Joe, and a little bit of Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle from “Taxi Driver” as well.
Drawing on Jonathan Ames’ novella, “You Were Never Really Here” has Paul Schrader and Martin Scorsese’s “Taxi Driver” in its bones, and its bursts of the work of a killer for hire are certainly prefaced by sleek work in Luc Besson’s “The Professional” (1994), the character’s PTSD anticipated by the metallic madness of Lodge Kerrigan’s terse terror, “Clean, Shaven” (1993).
The collision of sex trafficking and politics spells do-or-die stakes for all involved, and Joe’s maddening underworld descent into the very worst of human nature, where violence is the only language that matters, recalls Paul Schrader’s scripts for Taxi Driver and Hardcore.
An angry recluse intent on rescuing a preyed-upon girl from the bowels of sexual-exploitation Manhattan hell—it’s a traditional set-up, part Scorsese’s aforementioned 1976 classic, part Paul Schrader’s 1979 descent-into-porno-depravity, Hardcore.
Bad Lieutenant (1992)
Directed by Abel Ferrara
influenced You Were Never Really Here (2017)
Characters
In his own way, Phoenix is reminiscent of Harvey Keitel’s anonymous awful cop in Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant, only instead of pure id, Joe manifests his trauma as a hulking lump of sentient meat, rage channeled into a new hammer he picks up at a random hardware store during his latest quest to recover a Senator’s daughter (Ekaterina Samsonov).
A Woman Under the Influence (1974)
Directed by John Cassavetes
influenced Die My Love (2025)
Themes Characters
In that sense, Ramsay’s latest has more in common with A Woman Under the Influence, the John Cassavetes film where Gena Rowlands’ seemingly wild character that lashes out at an ordinary society that expects the impossible of her – all while treating her interiority as an afterthought.
…her unraveling more akin to Gena Rowlands' in John Cassavetes' "A Woman Under the Influence."
Grace’s mental breakdown recalls such titanic works of empathetic cinema as John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence…