There's a reason Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir is being hailed as one of the best movies of the year: It's incredibly personal, filled with moments so real in their banality that you feel like you've lived them.
Though it seems unfair to label such a delicately crafted film as a movie about a bad boyfriend, that's really the main plot driver. Julie (21-year-old Honor Swinton Byrne, in a breakout performance) a young film student living in London, meets Anthony (Tom Burke) at a party. It's not love at first sight exactly, but there's definitely a connection. With his broody 19th-century poet looks and self-assured (read: mansplaining) ways, Anthony cuts quite a figure. He's just one of those guys who projects just enough seedy glamour to seem interesting, and slowly, almost methodically, lures Julie into a toxic relationship that leaves her little to no room for herself.
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Case-in-point: this clip in which Anthony tells Julie that she's taking up too much room in her bed after he invited himself over for the weekend. (He ends up moving in soon after, but that's a tale for another time.) What looks like a charming, flirty exchange on the surface is concealing a much darker need for control. And somewhere, somehow, we've all been Julie, literally shrinking up on ourselves to take up just a little less space, just to make a man more comfortable.
Still more disturbing is just how much chemistry Burke and Swinton Byrne share in this scene, a rapport that makes us want to root for them, even as we know it's ultimately doomed.
Check out the full clip below. The Souvenir opens in wide release on May 31. Trust me, this is one you don't want to miss.
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