Franklyn (2008)

As a fan of the lovely Eva Green's short filmography any new entry into her resume is always of interest to me. Franklyn in particular looked to be a very interesting film, a beautifully shot, dark and mysterious science fiction drama which keeps you guessing to the very end. To my dismay the film was only released in Europe and with little chance of being released in the states, luckily I was able to find a copy without having to blind buy an import, but after watching I'll still be purchasing the Blu-ray version when it hits Amazon.uk near the end of June.

Franklyn is one of those films you can't say much about without ruining the story, so I'll attempt to be as vague as possible without giving away the punchline of the film. Franklyn follows four characters in seemingly unrelated story lines, it's not until the very end of the film that we discover how their stories all intertwine. Eva Green plays Emilia, by far the films' darkest character, whose miserable childhood and current rocky relationship with her mother has turned her into a woman who uses multiple suicide attempts as an art and an outlet of gaining attention and closure from her mother. Sam Riley is Milo, a young man whose life has been shattered when his fiancee breaks up with him days before their wedding. Following this Milo begins to see his childhood sweetheart Sally, a girl he hasn't seen in twenty years, an occurrence that turns out to be much more than a coincidence.

Benard Hill plays David Esser, an older gentlemen who learns that his military son has disappeared and is possibly unstable. And finally Ryan Phillippe plays Jonathan Preest a character who lives in a fantasy city known as Meanwhile City. Preest is a masked vigilante searching for a young girl whom he discovers has been kidnapped and killed by a religious cult helmed by a man known only as The Individual. The basic connection and foundation between all the characters is the fact that they are searching for something, all of them have lost someone close to them in their past which has shaped them into the person they currently are.

Franklyn is not a film for the impatient. It bases it's entire premise on mystery, a mixture of reality and fantasy that throughout most of the film may make absolutely no sense. It's a film which is full of subtle commonalities between four characters which appear to be completely unrelated, which are better recognized after the first viewing. In other words, Franklyn is not a film for viewers who hate not knowing whats going on. Personally I think that's the brilliance of the film, it keeps you interested and keeps you thinking. But I know many people who would find a film like this boring, finding it difficult to get into a story when they can't see where it's going, if that's you then pass this one by.

The most confusing part of the film is the scenes that take place in Meanwhile City. It's clear there has to be some connection between the real world and this dark fantasy city but it's a mystery as to what it is. It's only as the film progresses that you begin to see slight connections between the real world and this fantasy world, and at the end it all makes sense. Overall, I ended up enjoying Franklyn about as much as I hoped I would. Before watching it I was a little weary after reading many comments that the film was too boring, but I wasn't bored for a minute. It's truly a different type of film that combines a unique storyline with a mysterious sort of plot, that's open to multiple viewings to be able to grasp everything that's going on.

8/10