EXPRESSION: Joanna Hogg's THE SOUVENIR: PART II (2021, wri/dir by Joanna Hogg, w/ Honor Swinton Bryne, Tilda Swinton, Richard Ayoade, 107mns, UK)

Joanna Hogg's THE SOUVENIR: PART II complicates THE SOUVENIR: PART I. Often for the good, but not always.

If THE SOUVENIR PART I triumphs because it is a brutal and humane look at a love affair plagued by one partner's drug addiction, THE SOUVENIR PART II continues the story of the partner who survives and must carry on.

But this may not be getting to the heart of it. Both THE SOUVENIR PARTS I & II are also about filmmaker Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne) becoming an adult woman, finding her own confidence in her self, her vocation as a moviemaker, and her comfort defining herself on her own terms. Not those dictated by a domineering lying drug addict boyfriend, film school peers, or even loving well-meaning parents.

If THE SOUVENIR PART I is the story of a painful yet deep love affair, THE SOUVENIR PART II is the story of an awkward yet empowering metamorphosis. 

It picks up just where PART I ends-in the aftermath of Anthony's death by heroin overdose. 

Julie and her mother Rosalind who is a rock for her daughter.

The joys of PART II are myriad. The growing suspicion that the key relationship in THE SOUVENIR really is between Julie and her mother Rosalind (played by Swinton Byrne's real life mother Tilda Swinton) is mostly confirmed here. No surprise then to learn that Hogg's next movie, THE ETERNAL DAUGHTER (2022) picks up with Rosalind and Julie (now in middle age) decades later. 

We also get much more of Richard Ayoade's hilarious fellow film school director diva Patrick. 

Richard Ayoade’s diva director Patrick is a fascinating conundrum…

Patrick is given to spoiled director tantrums, narcissistic dismissals of other's feelings, yet brutally honest and necessary assessments. 

In fact, Patrick feels like the Anthony stand-in Julie needs in PART II. Julie has lost the one person who would be brutally honest with her. Patrick fills that void (even though they never romantically link).

What we do see in PART II is Julie making more questionable decisions when it comes to the men she has sex with. While these moments make you wince, they also earn your respect. Hogg doesn't pull punches as Julie moves forward and falls backwards in equal parts. 

What no aspect of PART I or most of PART II prepares you for is a third act move into expressionism. While this writer has heard other folks talk about the link between Hogg and Powell & Pressburger, this late movie within a movie sequence reminded more of Vincent Minnelli's final musical numbers, Bob Fosse, and even Fassbinder's own epilogue to BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ.

It's a daring move from disciplined naturalism to a sudden gash of cinematic hyperstylization. 

The final shot of the movie (don't worry no spoilers) is a stunner as well. And succinctly ties everything together and points us in the direction forward. We know what lies ahead in Julie's future. And the past and future connect here like a mobius strip.

Still, this writer's concerns (voiced in the review of PART I) that the meta-movie maker making a movie about becoming a movie maker within the movie where a movie maker is making a movie about...would feel a bit hermetic or indulgent come to pass a bit here.

The movie maker making a movie about becoming a movie mostly works but does occasionally distract…

Hogg miraculously avoided the feeling of self-aware indulgence in PART I. Maybe because the intense story of Julie and Anthony's doomed love was stripped bare, naked, and honest to overpower any hesitations.

Here, some of the reflexive movie commenting on itself moments do feel indulgent.

Nevertheless, THE SOUVENIR PARTS I & II feel hard fought and hard earned. The emotions, progressions, relationships, struggles are bracingly refreshing in their honesty.

If the two movies prove anything, they prove how hard it is to navigate the Scylla and Charabdis of telling the story of one's own life. Either you are too brutal and punishing or too easy and forgiving of yourself. 

Hogg, like Odysseus before her, somehow manages to avoid those perils. She lets us experience in her semi-autobiographical movie, so many beautiful uncertainties we come to recognize they echo our own. 

Craig Hammill is the founder.programmer of Secret Movie Club.