Typist Artist Pirate King (2023)

This is actually quite a difficult film to review. I thought the performances here, especially from Monica Dolan as "Audrey" but also of Kelly Macdonald as "Sandra" were really quite poignant. The former is a lady with mental health issues, the latter is her psychiatric helper. "Audrey", who believes she is terminally ill, has moments of amazing lucidity followed by moments of violent temper tantrums and almost hallucinatory conversations with people real and imaginary whilst "Sandra" finds herself drawn more into her turbulent world, and more determined to try to make a difference. "Audrey" makes frequent reference to her friend "Dorothy" (Gina McKee) and so "Sandra" agrees to drive her to try and find her - in the hope that it might offer some degree of explanation and maybe even closure for her clearly pained companion. Along the way they push each other to the limits of exasperation and frustration, leaving "Sandra" emotionally exhausted but still undaunted after a period in which most of us, I suspect, would have jumped ship. The story itself, and the production I liked much less. It cannot have had much of a budget and in my opinion too much was left to the roller-coaster characterisations, abandoning the look and feel of the film to that rather basic, filmed early on a Sunday morning, style. It's twenty minutes too long and is extremely dialogue heavy. Whilst some of that is entertaining as well as challenging, it also never gives the audience time for the odd breather so we can actually absorb some of the information we are being pretty relentlessly bombarded with. It's thought provoking and don't expect an easy watch - do expect a BAFTA nomination for Monica Dolan though, she's very good.