Guest of Honour (2019)

Guest of Honour review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

Guest of Honour is a slow and quiet drama of people who seem trapped in the past. They wander through the present like ghosts, fondly remembering simple times that seem long behind them when tragedy befalls them. The tragedy comes more from desperation, a need to feel something more when life seems to have its allure and fairness. It’s a melodrama that lingers on just how hazy morality can become when life seems to be little more than a series of hum-drum exchanges and little hope for the future.

Veronica (Laysla De Oliveira) is a woman who has all but given up on life. She was a band teacher but found herself thrown into a scandal of relations with her students, a claim that was falsified. The film jumps around in a nonlinear fashion, cutting between Veronica’s career in music, her refusal to be let out of jail, and her arrangements for her father’s funeral. Her father, Jim (David Thewlis), is also seen from many points in time. We get to see him on the job as a health inspector for restaurants, his quiet moments taking care of a rabbit, and being reminded of when Veronica was only a child.

Their lives are rocky ones that are permeating with discomfort, lies, and foggy visions of the past. Jim finds himself resorting to hooking up with Veronica’s teacher and Veronica finds herself making grave mistakes in trying to ensure her way. The two of them carry heavy baggage that affects everything they do in both relationships and careers. As the film goes on, we start to understand a little more why Veronica believes herself so guilty and why Jim would resort to such gross antics as faking rat poop to shut down a restaurant.

There’s a clear focus within such a contemplative picture about the innocence that is lost. When Jim spends his quiet evenings at home as an empty-nester, he pets his rabbit and watches videos of his daughter as a mere girl. In the outside world, he witnesses restaurants severing up rabbits, disgusting him to realize that something so gentle would be slaughtered and consumed. And it isn’t too long before something horrible happens to his own rabbit as well.

The film was written and directed by Atom Egoyan, better known for his envelope-pushing thrillers of Exotica, Where the Truth Lies, and Chloe. His work on this film is more of a simmer then a boil but he throws in all the right ingredients to make this kind of film work with its off and somber nature. He weaves complicated and compelling characters that come branded with exceptionally calm performances by Oliveira and Thewlis. Oh, I almost forgot that Luke Wilson was in this film as the listening priest who hears Veronica’s stories about her father. He, too, is also understated just enough to make his mark in a film where such shocking and dark material is delivered in a melancholic tone. This could easily be more of a crime thriller and yet Eogyan finds just a bit more in this contemplative approach.