In one of many brilliant scenes in The Souvenir Part II, a quiet drama is built around the accidental smashing of a much-loved ceramic sugar bowl. Aptly enough, Joanna Hogg’s second chapter of her semi-autobiographical brace is a film about picking up the pieces. It effortlessly feels of a piece with its progenitor but it is so much more: still intimate and fragile, but played out on a more expansive canvas. Like, say, The Empire Strikes Back or Aliens, it does what every good sequel should do — blow the world of the first film wide open — except it does it without AT-ATs or power loaders, instead just with powerful, personal, inventive filmmaking.
At its heart, The Souvenir Part II is a portrait of a young woman getting to grips with a broken life in general and her nascent creativity in particular. After the death of her heroin-addicted lover Anthony at the end of the first film, Honor Swinton Byrne’s film-school student Julie Harte — the J.H. initials suggest the director’s alter-ego — is at a turning point in her filmmaking. Jettisoning her project about working-class life in the Sunderland docks, Julie decides to make a version of her relationship with Anthony. Hogg, ripping from her own time at film school, paints a painfully believable portrait of student filmmaking, the sense of rivalry, squabbles — there is a fantastic argument in the back of a minibus — and the idiosyncratic, indecisive process of a young filmmaker failing to share their vision with the cast and crew.
Julie also takes her first steps in the professional film world through vividly realised pop-promo shoots and reuniting with flamboyant filmmaker Patrick (Richard Ayoade), whom she met briefly in the first flick. Ayoade is Part II’s secret weapon, an egomaniacal auteur who compares himself to Scorsese (an executive producer on both Souvenir films) and dismisses praise during editing (“That’s marvellously generic.” “You’re forcing me to have a tantrum”), yet finds notes of pathos in a third-act meeting with Julie in Soho in the rain.
Hogg’s control of her filmmaking palate throughout is immense.
Around Julie’s filmmaking exploits Hogg adds in different textures. Post Anthony, Julie has three very different relationships with three very different men — intense actor Jim (Charlie Heaton), the miscast star of her own short, Pete (Harris Dickinson), and a sweet film editor (Joe Alwyn) — and rediscovers sex (no spoilers). There are also beautifully played scenes with Julie and her parents (Tilda Swinton, James Spencer Ashworth), perfectly toggling between affection and reserve.
But this is Honor Swinton Byrne’s film, No longer in the shadow of Tom Burke’s overbearing Anthony, she comes into her own here, still a quiet, delicate presence, but one that is absolutely absorbing. Hogg’s control of her filmmaking palate throughout is immense — Julie’s final ‘film’ is ‘Part I’ filtered through Powell & Pressburger — but perhaps her biggest accomplishment is drawing something honest and true from the fabrication of filmmaking; about living with tragedy, about finding your own voice and ultimately about growing up. Hats off, J.H..
