Daphne
Director Peter Mackie Burns
Talent Emily Beecham, Geraldine James, Tom Vaughan-Lawlor
Released 29th September
Daphne (Emily Beecham) is an emotionally closed-off 31-year-old living in avaricious London. In her spare time she reads Slavoj Zizek and expounds on love’s non-existence to her friends – “it’s just the lover projecting an idealised image onto the love object.” She’s locked into a deadening routine of boozing and meaningless one-night-stands. Long overdue a wakeup call, Daphne’s forced to come unstuck when she witnesses a violent stabbing during a stick-up. Or so it would seem, because Daphne is almost hell-bent in her resistance to inner-change.
There is certainly merit to portraying difficult people on screen. Likability should never be a pre-requisite for a main character. And Daphne is indeed a frustrating protagonist; that we’re invested in her at all is thanks to Beecham’s committed performance.
Still, it’s refreshing to see transformation done right: here, it’s a grubby business of painful increments. Daphne hides behind a posture of irreverent humour. She’s all defiant joshing, scoffing when people try to enter into a more sincere register. This all rings true.
But such realism, the film’s biggest strength, is also its biggest weakness. Daphne is an annoying little sod, but she’s not that bad. People tend to just shrug off her negative musings; she never says anything so incisive that anyone appears too wounded. This, along with Daphne’s lack of inner momentum, can at times make for dramatic inertia. We don’t get enough of the dire consequences of such nihilism.
For a rough approximation of this experience, follow that gruff colleague of yours throughout the week. They might seem more rounded, but you’ll also be very glad to be free of them by the end. A curious little piece. Not essential, but, just like its protagonist, you’ll have seen far worse.
Words: Rory Kiberd
