Surge (2020)

Nervous Breakdown Character Study with the Great ben Wishaw but really just a padded-out short film. - Surge review by PV

OK so this is a character study - as are most state-funded (BBC, FilmFour, Arts Councils) films these days.

Ben Wishaw is a great actor and he is the reason to watch. I do believe in his character - I do not believe in his parents, esp the father, a stereotyped bad man father character if ever I saw one.

The rest is just an unbelievable tale of a man with a tedious unfulfilling lonely life who has a breakdown (the source of so many novels, films, comedy too). Many MANY people live such lives. The inciting incident and plot points do seem very contrived, however, Do I believe in the world of the story> No. NO SPOILERS but I do not believe the main character can get away with the first plot point. There is such a thing as security at such places.

It is basically a short film stretched out to feature length which it cannot carry really - it adds cliched tropes in the 2nd half to keep the film jogging along.

Very realistic heathrow scenes and the London here could have been filmed in all those parts of London I hate, the jumbled streets with phone shops, fancy goods shops, barbers, 24 hour supermarkers, pawn brokers, takeaways, £1 chick shops etc. I know those streets and hate them, though I love historic London. I just hate that horrible hinterland of London. This was filmed in Hackney, Haringey, Islington and yes, could be so many streets in all them.

2 stars.

Interesting Psychodrama - Surge review by GI

An interesting mood piece with a tour de force central performance by Ben Whishaw who really gets deep inside the role. He plays Joseph, a lonely airport security officer who suffers from insomnia and has unrequited feelings for work colleague, Lily (Jasmine Jobson). After a visit to his cold and overly critical parents Joseph begins to have a mental breakdown which culminates at work and sets him off on a surreal odyssey through the streets of London where his behaviour becomes more and more erratic. Whishaw gives Joseph a disturbing physical transformation of ticks and twitches, gurning and bizarre behaviour as he encounters strangers until he visits Lily to help her with a TV connection problem. Needing a new cable for her TV Joseph moves into a series of robberies when he finds he has no money. In a lot of ways this is a gripping psychodrama with violence forever expected to spill out but each time Joseph seems to move onwards on his journey to emotional breakdown. An interesting film which does feel as if it's been dragged out into feature length but it does have some very interesting ideas and visuals of a man on the edge of collapse.