12 Most Divisive Movies Of 2018
4. You Were Never Really Here
Even when she's trying her hand at a mainstream(ish) movie, director Lynn Ramsay is always divisive. Her lyrical style of filmmaking prioritises abstract and metaphorical storytelling rather than regular, straightforward plotting, which can sometimes make her films feel a touch like homework - if you're not enraptured by the characters, world or visuals, anyway.
You Were Never Really Here, based on the novel of the same name, is no different, with the story about Joaquin Phoenix's Joe's attempt to rescue a politician's daughter from a child sex ring being at once simple yet deceptively opaque. Much of the background of the book has been ripped out or reshaped, to the point where you only get brief glimpses of Joe's backstory, and are forced to piece it together yourself.
Likewise, while the premise promises a hulking Phoenix dishing out violent retribution on a bunch of terrible people, there's no real catharsis to the violence, and the destruction of these villains can never truly be revelled in. Of course, that's entirely the point, but where some audiences embrace this style of storytelling, others view it as wholly unsatisfying.