Film Review | Departure is a Visually Beautiful Tale of Young Infatuation
*Spoiler Warning*
On the surface, Andrew Steggall’s Departure comes across as a slightly artier, and far more European, version of the recent Jake Gyllenhaal vehicle Demolition. Elliot (Alex Lawther) accompanies his mother Beatrice (Juliet Stevenson) to their family holiday home in the south of France to clean the place out in light of an impending divorce. Soon, Elliot spies Clement (Phénix Brossard), a Parisian spending the summer with his aunt. Clement gradually gets drawn into the family, and slowly becomes the object of Elliot’s dreamy affections.
The most obviously apparent thing about Departure is how gorgeous the film looks. One of the early films that cinematographer Brian Fawcett worked on was Anton Corbjijn’s Control, and he seems to have learned quite a bit from the esteemed director/photographer. The French countryside is rendered absolutely stunning, with Fawcett favouring very wide frames that really allow you to drink in as much of the imagery as possible. In addition, most scenes only have one or two cuts in them, which really plays to Fawcett’s cinematography. Alex Lawther is particularly good as Elliot. Best known perhaps for playing a young Alan Turing in The Imitation Game he captures the awkwardness of being a teenager and the general anguish that comes with young love quite well, venturing from being an annoying little shit to a character that you both recognise and feel immense sympathy for.
Less successful however, is the film’s direction. Andrew Steggall has a background in theatre, and there are a number of elements in Departure where you can almost hear the set start to creak. There’s a lot of aspects to the film that sound great on paper, but that just don’t come together on screen, giving the film a hokey, underdeveloped feel. Elliot’s growing fixation of Clement starts off quite interesting, but Steggall proves to be inept at ratcheting any tension in the story. We never get a sense of Elliot’s longing or Clement’s indifference, and when the two do kiss it comes after a fight, which is just about the most clichéd option that Steggall could have taken. Additionally, there are far too many plots heaped into the film, and none of them are given any room to breath. Elliot’s mother gradually becomes infatuated with Clement, which never quite gets resolved and late in the film Elliot’s father arrives, and there’s a late revelation that he might harbour gay feelings, a revelation that comes across as being crassly tacked on and utterly pointless. Early on in the film the audience learns that Clement is spending time in Southern France because his mother has cancer, and far too many times I found myself thinking that a film from Clement’s perspective would be a far more interesting affair.
All that said, the film does seem to have an awareness of its own pretensions. Elliot, a would be poet, becomes the butt of wry quips from almost every other character, and I counted at least 3 very good wank jokes. While these, along with the genuinely great visuals aren’t enough to save the film, they do stop it from becoming somewhat unbearable.
Departure is in selected cinemas from Friday May 20th. Check out the trailer below.
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