Private Life writer/director Tamara Jenkins has three films to her credit, and went 9 and then 11 years between them. Lynne Ramsay is another great example of this. She's had multiple movies taken away from her due to creative differences, and as a result she's only made 4 feature length films since her first 20 years ago.
You Were Never Really Here is typical of her work -- uncompromising, sparse dialouge, vivid imagery. It's an extremely lean (85 minutes) and lyrical film about Joe (Joaquin Pheonix), a hired gun who rescues traffiked girls via brutal methods. He is haunted by a traumatic past that clearly includes sexual abuse from his father, and more opaquely includes emotionally exhausting work in the FBI and the military (we literally only see short snapshot flashbacks with little to no explanation).
Joe spends most of his free time doting on his elderly mother, but when he gets involved with a conspiracy that goes all the way up to the Governor, his life is turned upsidedown. Plot is beside the point here, in a film that got none of the accolades of Joker, another Pheonix vehicle that mines similar territory.
Pheonix is front and center and he uses every ounce of his skill to fully inhabit Joe far beyond the limits of the minimal script. Ramsay shows off a bit with some choices, but my favorite aspect is her atypical approach. In one scene, Joe infiltrates a baddie compound, and we see static shot after static shot of the place, but each shot includes the aftermath of his actions (you can tell by the bodies on the ground).
In another, Joe lies on the ground next to a mortally wounded would be assassin and then the two begin to sing a song together. When the baddie reaches out to hold Joe's hand whole he dies, Joe allows him the kindness. The vulnerability of the scene (shown below) is overpowering. So to is this hypnotic gem of a film.
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