Director: Gerald McMorrow
Starring: Ryan Phillippe, Eva Green & Sam Riley
An impressive debut from McMorrow that mixes present day London locales, a Gothic Fantasy world and interweaving plotlines to create a very enjoyable mystery with strong performances.
Franklyn is a jigsaw puzzle of a movie, and if you don’t like puzzles then perhaps Franklyn isn’t the film for you. But, if you like mysteries and stories that require your attention then Franklyn should entertain. Featuring several different characters and following several different plotlines, Franklyn is a film that begins to make more and more sense as it goes along and as each plot strand interweaves and comes closer to revealing the whole picture. First, in a city of gothic fantasy called Meanwhile City where religion drives all of society, we have John Preest, an assassin without religion who is preparing for a kill then, in present day London, we follow three other characters: Milo, recently jilted at the altar by his fiancé, now has glimpses of a girl he knew as a child who he’s trying to locate; Emily, an artist who films her own suicide attempts for an art project; and Peter, a father looking for his son who has gone missing from a military psychiatric facility. How these three, real world, characters and John Preest in Meanwhile City relate to each other is vague at first but as connections between them all begin to surface, the mystery becomes even deeper, more interesting and more rewarding.
Filmed on a low budget, Franklyn’s fantasy based sequences still look very impressive. Meanwhile City is a gothic city gone mad where the architecture resembles Cathedrals with spires and arches and statues towering over the streets and high into the sky. Its inhabitants and their society bear resemblance to our own but in a society where church and state is no longer separate and bureaucracy also reigns. Meanwhile City and its people resemble a world that feels somewhat like a mix of Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and Alex Proyas’ Dark City and its main character, the assassin John Preest, looks like a Halloween nightmare wearing a white mask that resembles a straight-jacket in its material but with hollow, black eyes. The real world scenes, initially, stand out as looking poorer in comparison to the fantasy based scenes but soon the differences in quality seem less obvious as the director, McMorrow, makes good use of the Cathedrals of Canterbury and the alleyways of London to highlight similarities between these locales and Meanwhile City.
In addition to an interesting plot, and impressive set design, Franklyn also benefits from a strong cast and impressive performances. Ryan Phillippe manages to be effectively intimidating as Preest, whether wearing a mask or not, and speaking with a low growl and with spite for the world he lives in and the people he encounters whilst also being able to convincingly demonstrate his character’s vulnerabilities in Franklyn’s later scenes. Eva Green continues to be very watchable as, despite her character feeling like a stereotype at times as the traumatized artist with a gothic appearance and outlook, Green still infuses her character with world weary cynicism and intelligence and Bernard Hill delivers a very sympathetic performance as the father looking for his lost son and whose mistakes in the past caused the problems that lead to his son being committed to an institution in the first place. Hill manages to give Peter a satisfying amount of guilt and compassion. Most impressive though is Sam Riley. As Milo, his character and his story seems, at first, to the least in common with any other part of Franklyn’s plot but Riley gives a very earnest and likeable performance and is perhaps the closest thing Franklyn has to a lead character. Like with his performance as Ian Curtis in Control, Riley continues to demonstrate here the qualities that make him a talent to watch for in the future.
Overall, while the backgrounds of some of the characters feel old, and some of the fantasy settings, despite looking great, feeling over-influenced by similar settings from other films, Franklyn is still a very enjoyable film. The performances of its cast add much more depth to their roles than their character’s backgrounds might have permitted them whilst the mixing of a fantasy setting with stories set in recognizable locations like Canterbury help make the use of Meanwhile City more interesting than if the film had solely taken place there. Add to that an intelligent storyline that, whilst testing the patience of some audiences, wraps up into and interesting and satisfying finale that allows for both logic and fantasy to explain. An enjoyable debut from Gerald McMorrow.
Rating: 4/5
