52 Films by Women Vol 8. 42. Reawakening (Director: Virginia Gilbert)

 

Pictured: Mary (Juliet Stevenson) and a mysterious stranger (Erin Doherty) as viewed by John (Jared Harris, not shown) in a scene from the fractured family drama, 'Reawakening', a British film written and directed by Virginia Gilbert. Still courtesy of Eclipse Pictures (Ireland), Signature Entertainment (UK)

To lose a child. To experience your child, aged fourteen, run away from home, never to return. To appeal to the media – the world – and hear nothing. To sit at home, blaming, fretting, focussing on one thing. To grieve without a body. To flinch at sympathy. To watch the bills mount up. To return to work, unwillingly. To shift focus but always revert to that central wrong. To repeat the question: why? To pretend - at work, at home, living with the fog of distraction and trauma. To carry on.

Reawakening, British writer-director Virginia Gilbert’s second feature – her first was A Long Way from Home starring James Fox and Brenda Fricker released in 2013 – explores the subject of parental limbo conveying palpable emotional weight. This isn’t a film that hinges on plot twists, rather emotional responses, as the intentionally blandly named John (Jared Harris) and Mary Reed (Juliet Stevenson) find themselves confronted with a young woman (Erin Doherty) who Mary believes is their missing daughter, Clare, standing outside their front door, returned after ten years away. Gilbert’s principal viewpoint character is John, who instinctively knows that she is an imposter. He proposes a DNA test. ‘That’s fair,’ responds the young woman, hands rigidly by her sides, bunching the ends of the sleeves of her pullover. John can’t go through with it – he drops the sugar bowl that the young woman handled in an amateur attempt to preserve the evidence. He sees the effect the young woman has on his wife and is conflicted.

Gilbert is the daughter of noted director Brian Gilbert (Tom and Viv, Wilde). He hasn’t made a film since 2005, trading the megaphone for a lecturing position at the National Film and Television School. Virginia Gilbert’s instincts are her own. Her second feature is accomplished without being ostentatious, with intelligent use of lighting, editing and, above all, her cast. Not that her casting is perfect. The resoundingly middle-class Stevenson is not convincing as a working-class older teaching assistant. She’s taken the part away from a genuinely working-class actress. However, few actresses can convey grief and anger quite as compellingly as her, most notably in the film Truly Madly Deeply. Stevenson has dropped her haitches before, as Keira Knightley’s mum in Bend it like Beckham. Rarely out of work, with roles in a number of forthcoming television series, her screen career features intermittent leading roles (The Politician’s Wife, One of Us) that haven’t held a candle to her role in the aforementioned feature debut of writer-director Anthony Minghella. Here, she grabs our attention as a woman who wants to believe, clinging to the young woman whose single repeated refrain is, ‘I’m sorry’.

If Stevenson’s screen career hasn’t been filled with star-making roles, Harris’ is even less so. The son of so-called ‘hellraiser’ Richard, Harris doesn’t seek the showy parts with which he might compete with his father. ‘Chameleon’, ‘solid’, occasionally ‘suave’ are adjectives associated with him. He had a recurring role in the long-running television series Mad Men, in which he appeared in 35 episodes, for which he was nominated for an Emmy. He is perfect as John, struggling to make sense of his predicament, angry and dogged in pursuit of answers. We are drawn into his conflict and his feeling of offence.

The opening ‘ten-year anniversary’ press conference sets the tone. John and Mary are uncomfortable as they make their appeal, once again. Describing Clare, John’s is the first voice we hear, his words accompanied by with a montage of young women in their twenties walking down the street. ‘Blonde hair, shoulder length, no distinguishing features.’ DI Chambers (Nicholas Pinnock), the officer in charge of the investigation, is, one suspects, new to the case. John and Mary cannot conceal their distress. Their trauma is live. New posters are put up. At the school where Mary works, the Missing Persons poster is covered by others. Mary re-pins it, so it can once again be seen. Gilbert tells us that the community has moved on, but surely they wouldn’t be so indifferent, so caught up in what they want to advertise. Returning from the police station, John and Mary settle down to a meal that neither finishes. ‘There’s a new detective drama on,’ Mary suggests. She talks about a staff member, filling the void with gossip. It’s a distraction. John can only watch. He watches too as Mary enters their daughter’s room, telling an empty bed about her day. It is as if the ritual could bring her back. He doesn’t interrupt or intervene, being as immersed in grief and trauma.

Pictured: John (Jared Harris) and Mary (Juliet Stevenson) in a scene from the fractured family drama, 'Reawakening', a British film written and directed by Virginia Gilbert. Still courtesy of Eclipse Pictures (Ireland), Signature Entertainment (UK)

John has his own coping routine, too, visiting a hostel for runaways. The care worker running the centre, Bella (Niamh Cusack) greets him enthusiastically, offers him a cup of tea, (‘two sugars’, affirming their familiarity) and seats him opposite some young people (‘go easy on him, he’s one of the good ones’). He shows them a curled-up poster. ‘This is a picture of what she looked at when she disappeared, and this,’ indicating a second photograph, ‘is what she might look like now’. The young man shows no recognition. The young woman is more hostile. ‘Why’d she run away? Did you f-k her?’ Keeping calm, John explains that she got into drugs. A boy was involved. The young woman is unmoved. When a teenage girl runs away, it is generally to flee abuse. We imagine this is her story and that she wants payback. A substitute will do. Bidding John farewell, Bella exudes her optimistic bonhomie. ‘Hope I don’t see you again,’ she trills, without sarcasm.

John is an electrician who fixes model trains. In a flashback, he explains the workings of a motor to young Clare, who professes boredom and tells him that he should have had a boy. Cogs, wheels, chain reaction. John speaks the words with a sense of magic and awe. He takes a job on a building site, where he blends into the background. We see him with a screwdriver or holding a pair of wires. At the end of the working day, leaving the site, he doesn’t join in with the banter about one worker’s new van. He phones Mary while driving home, message straight to voicemail. It’s unlike her. He rings, rings again, anxiety mounting. Entering the house, he calls to her. Mary enters the hall from the living room, closing the door behind it, blocking John’s path, face vibrating with joy. ‘She’s back,’ Mary trills. ‘Who?’ John asks. Mary opens the door just wide enough for John to see a young woman who doesn’t look at him with recognition. She’s standing, body only partially turned towards him, anxious and without words. John is appalled.

The viewer might think at this point, ‘shouldn’t he call the police?’ John doesn’t do so. Mary begs him not to ask her what happened. ‘She’ll tell us, in her own time.’ But when will that be? Not whilst having tea and cake. The young woman asks to see her room. ‘It’s just like it was before,’ she exclaims, astounded at the mausoleum to teenage life. After she leaves – the young woman has a flat to go to – Mary explains that the young woman was there, standing outside the front door. ‘I instantly knew who it was,’ Mary adds. ‘I let her in. I said her name.’ It is clear that the young woman didn’t introduce herself as the missing daughter. Equally clear that she had a traumatic experience of her own.

Pictured: 'Welcome back'. A mysterious stranger (Erin Doherty) is embraced by distraught mother, Mary Reed (Juliet Stevenson) in a scene from the British film, 'Reawakening', written and directed by Virginia Gilbert. Still courtesy of Eclipse Pictures (Ireland), Signature Entertainment (UK)

It isn’t long before the young woman becomes a frequent guest. Mary is invigorated, at the same time protective of her. John’s line of questioning remains confrontational. If the young woman is an imposter, what does she hope to gain?

To say more would be to spoil how the drama plays out, but it involves a trip to Manchester and another encounter with the angry runaway, this time spitting in John’s face – I imagine he hopes he won’t see her again. John is so distracted that he puts the wires on a plug in the wrong place. There is a visit to the young woman’s place of work. ‘Is he bothering you?’ one customer asks. ‘It’s a family matter,’ the young woman explains. Then there’s Mary’s admission and an explanation in John’s workroom, the camera staying on his face as John absorbs what he is being told, the latter a masterclass of screen acting on Harris’ part.

Gilbert intersperses the drama with flashbacks – sometimes quite literally flashes – of Clare at various ages, including being woken up by Mary, who suspects Clare may have overdosed on pills. The folk song, ‘early one morning/just as the sun was rising’ is used as a counterpoint, performed by children, reminding us that John and Mary still think of Clare as a child. We hear it more than once, also returning us to the start of the film. Music is used sparingly, but includes some Sibelius performed on the piano by Torquil Munro, the film’s credited composer.

Gilbert’s gripping drama ends conclusively – a heart shaped necklace with ‘C’ engraved on it brings tears to John’s eyes. The film’s title is earned. Erin Doherty gives an intentionally awkward performance. We never feel comfortable watching her. Her character’s trauma affects her perceptions of others. ‘You really need this,’ John says to her at one point. They do. They all do.

 

Reviewed at Vue Finchley Road (O2 Centre), North London, Screen Three, Friday 20 September 2024, 16:35 screening