It’s not often that independent movies get sequels. Honestly, it’s not often that independent movies need sequels. But then again, it’s not often that movies of any scale are The Souvenir. In 2019, The Souvenir was a film that really bowled me off my feet, telling the story of a young film student named Julie and her relationship with an enigmatic yet charming man named Anthony, whose sudden disappearance at the end of the film leaves a profound mark on her life. The film can certainly stand alone but with this dramatic moment occurring in the final few scenes of The Souvenir, it is clear that there’s much still to process. In order to process that then, here is The Souvenir Part II, distinctly named so as to make it clear that this is the second half of The Souvenir and not an unnecessary expansion.

Now that most of the people who didn’t see The Souvenir are gone, it’s time to stop playing coy and talk about the end of the first film a little. Julie is still shaken by Anthony’s death and spends much of the first half of Part II talking to people Anthony knew and asking them for answers. However, Julie is also still trying to get on with her life, including graduating film school. The second half of the film then is still concerned with Anthony in some aspects, as Julie creates a final piece that borrows liberally from her relationship with her now deceased partner. This is where the brilliantly meta elements of the film really start to get folded in, as The Souvenir was originally based on a relationship that writer/director Joanna Hogg had when she was a young woman, that she (Joanna) made into a film called The Souvenir, a film which features Julie making a film out of her relationship, called The Souvenir. Confused? Don’t worry about it, there’s not too much to grasp, it all makes sense on screen even if I can’t lay it down coherently.

I believe in [Julie] completely, in every scene.

Once again, Honor Swinton Byrne plays Julie and plays her delightfully. Julie is the kind of character I should hate. She is intensely privileged, is quite unaware of the world around her and is generally a character whose gentle nature allows herself to be moved around by the machinations of the world. And yet, in Byrne’s hands that gentleness is Julie’s strength. She never feels annoying because of her wealthy lifestyle or naivety because she feels real. I believe in her completely, in every scene. The supporting cast are also terrific. Some are returning actors, like Tilda Swinton and Ariane Labed, the former in a smaller role but the latter soaring in an expanded role. My favourite returning actor though is Richard Ayoade. He essentially had a cameo in the last film, but he gets a good handful of scenes this time around and wrings all of them for both comedy and genuine pathos. It’s his best role since Paddington 2, I don’t mean that to sound like a joke. New cast members are also good, but I just remain so transfixed by Julie that it’s hard to talk about other characters in a fair way.

As with the first part, Part II remains a film about memory, something extra tangible due to its place as a sequel. If you have seen the first film already, I seriously recommend not re-watching it before seeing the sequel, because that maleability to your memory of the previous events is exactly what Part II works so well because of. Sets feel familiar yet uncomfortably empty, gazes are held into vacant spaces, conversations are had seeking answers to questions we may never have raised. Complicating the films relationship with memory is the new lens Hogg has also added; the camera lens. As the beautiful poster above puts it visually, Julie is the filter through which we view the film and through which she creates her own film. We’re getting into pretentious, twisty turny territory now, I appreciate, but it’s exactly this kind of thematic weaving that I love. It also means that just like the first installment, it’s an incredible feeling when scenes or shots resurface in my mind. Much as the experience of watching the film is brilliant, it lends itself very well to musing over and you know me, I love a good muse.

Hogg is totally capable of play within an emotional field, slowness is just her field of choice.

These aspects are all delivered to us through a film whose tone is once again totally dreamy. It’s quite a slow film, occasionally interspersed with some lovely little musical moments, but otherwise it is a long series of scenes where characters talk or sit quietly. I can’t emphasise this enough though, if you’re on board with the characters then you want to spend time with them, to luxuriate in their world. This softness also means that any breaks in the pattern feel genuinely shocking. There’s a scene where an item of crockery is broken and the gasp heard in the screening room was almost hilariously loud. Again, it is testament to how well the film works that it can make you legitimately jump because of the emotional connection you built with a pot. In the final act though, there is a scene which ditches this and goes for a feeling that is comparable to the finale of Twin Peaks season two. To say more would ruin it but suffice to say, Hogg is totally capable of play within an emotional field, slowness is just her field of choice.

In a way, these reviews from London Film Festival are all going to end up being really boring. Guess what, I loved The Souvenir Part II! Filtering the memories of the memories through the camera and into my soul, Joanna Hogg delivers a knockout film that even in a time when I’m inundated with brilliant films is proving to stick. Don’t watch it if you haven’t seen the first, but if you haven’t seen the first then there’s still plenty of time to watch it and let linger. I think Part II is getting a UK release in January and until I can see it again, I’m very excited to let Joanna’s film about Julie’s film percolate a while and create a delicious crema in my brain.

Red Rocket is the newest film from director, writer and editor (among other things) Sean Baker, after his delightful The Florida Project back in 2017. While both films are set in the trash underbelly of America though, Red Rocket is very different in tone due to ditching a loveable main character in favour of one of the worst people I have ever seen depicted in a film. This character is Mikey, a former porn star who returns to Texas to live with his ex-wife (herself also a former porn star) due to his career in Los Angeles imploding. This return is both unannounced and unwelcome, but he returns regardless into the town he once called home.

Once settled onto his mother-in-law’s sofa, it is fair to say that Mikey isn’t exactly being a model citizen. After a brilliant montage in which he spends his numerous job interviews explaining the seventeen year hole on his CV (“Google me”, he encourages his potential employers, with a twinkle in his eye), Mikey falls back into his old job dealing weed and sets about befriending any of the locals who are vulnerable enough to believe his lies. These all lead Mikey to the Donut Hole, a donut shop where Mikey meets a girl named Strawberry, who turns 18 in three weeks. In her, he sees potential. He sees a dream. He sees his possible re-entry into the very industry that sent him sprawling back to Texas. And so, he is willing to do whatever terrible thing it takes to make his return happen, careening through Baker’s brilliant script without a single compassionate gesture or thought for others. The only question is, when will the crash happen?

Red Rocket is a hangout movie starring the worst person you’ve ever met.

The script is one that largely isn’t plot motivated, which the lack of details in my description hopefully clued you in to. For a large amount of the runtime, Red Rocket feels like a hangout movie starring the worst person you’ve ever met. Fortunately, thanks to Baker’s script, it’s an incredibly funny hangout. Whether in the awkwardness of Mikey attempting to weave another lie or an extended monologue about Mikey’s resemblance to Paul Walker in The Fast and The Furious (which I obviously cackled at very loudly), Red Rocket is predominantly a comedy and a really funny one at that. The comedic elements become essential as the film moves forward, as Mikey commits worse and worse acts. I spent most of the third act in an agonisingly anxious state, which was thankfully remedied somewhat by the humour. Never remedied enough to make the audience forget what Mikey was doing, but enough to keep us on-board long enough to get to a terrific needle drop moment in the finale.

As with Sean Baker’s other films, the cast in here is largely filled with non-professional actors, although lead actor Simon Rex is a notable exception. You see, what you may not know is that in the real world, Rex is (or was) an actual porn star, an actor “gifted” in ways that your typical Hollywood star is not expected to be. Whether Rex used his experience of this industry to help fuel the dirtbag character of Mikey is unclear, but what is clear is that he is a totally magnetic presence on screen. I always find it difficult to work out with actors I’m not familiar with if they’re great at embodying their character or they simply aren’t working with any expectations on my part, but I know Rex is great because even as his character was doing worse and worse things to the people around him, I couldn’t stop watching. He brilliantly embodies the kind of person you would never want to meet but can’t help gawking at on screen. I hope he has cause to make space in his awards cabinet this awards season, adding some prestigious awards next to his no doubt beloved AVN trophies.

While a large amount of the watchability of Red Rocket can certainly be attributed to Rex’s swinging performance, I’m also a huge fan of the cinematography of the film. Baker has turned to new collaborator Drew Daniels for this aspect of the film, whose previous work on the sumptuous Waves has clearly helped pave the way here. While the beautiful (and I do mean genuinely beautiful) look at the trashy side of America is carried over from The Florida Project, in which characters are cast in long shots against boldly coloured and brilliantly unremarkable buildings, it’s a new sense of kineticism here I love, which was something Daniels did so well with Waves. In this case specifically, I’m talking about zooms. I know that sounds like such a specific thing to bring up, but it adds so much personality to Red Rocket. Zooms are used as punchline, as crunching realisation, as visual metaphor for the perpetual motion machine that is Mikey. They are like raisins in the cookie of the film, scattered throughout and a soft treat among the crunch.

Baker also has more treats up his sleeve for the audience, those sleeves being in the outfit of the job of editor. It’s always great to see a director who can genuinely consider themselves as auteur from spinning so many plates on a project and it’s even greater when said plate spinning works brilliantly. Editing style is typically broken down between inter- and intra-scene editing, both of which Baker excels at. The intra-scene editing is slow, the film consisting of longer than average takes, but Baker knows when to hold on a moment and when to make it fleeting enough that the next shot feels like an exciting leap forward. Likewise, the inter-scene editing is brilliant, reminding me of a slightly flashier version of the editing style in Greta Gerwig’s films. Baker will often use editing to blend the same action across two different temporal planes, showing inhalation on a cigarette in one location before cutting to show exhalation on a different cigarette on a different place. This creates a disorienting effect that works perfectly for the film, scrambling your sense of time and place. We don’t know where or when we are, only that we are riding wildly on Mikey’s coattails. Of all the brilliant things to single out in this film, I think the editing may be the most brilliant.

[Mikey] is a scumbag, through and through, but a compelling scumbag for sure. I loved following him.

I think a lot of people will hate Red Rocket. Not much happens for a large part of the film and a lot of the things that do happen are Mikey committing criminal offences of various levels of seriousness. I, however, do not care if a protagonist is likable or not, I care for the ride and what a ride Sean Baker has given us. Setting the film in 2016 gives us more than enough clues of the kind of world we’re entering into, through a shockingly effective evocation of the period (2016 period piece is a concept that makes me feel prematurely 50 though) and by the end we need no more clues as to who it is we’re spending time with. Mikey is a scumbag, through and through, but a compelling scumbag for sure. I loved following him, though I didn’t feel sorry to say bye bye bye when, after a long time coming, Mikey’s time finally came.