“Queen at Sea,” Lance Hammer’s first feature in 18 years, is a work of shattering gentleness and harrowing ethical dilemmas. Navigating such thorny topics as consent and autonomy in the throes of dementia, the film is relentless in its exploration of impossible-to-answer questions, and uses, as its vessel, three sensational performers who make its drama both luminous and entirely devastating.
The film’s delicate opening scenes, of an aged couple ascending a public staircase arm-in-arm, are quickly fractured by stark images that yank the story into a harsh, unforgiving reality. Middle-aged, newly single professor Amanda (Juliette Binoche) brings her teenage daughter Sarah (Florence Hunt) along to a Victorian apartment in North London, where she finds her aged mother Leslie (Anna Calder-Marshall) under the thrusting hips of her stepfather Martin (Tom Courtenay). Leslie’s expression appears to be one of great discomfort, and Amanda’s exasperated response as she shoos Martin off her mother suggests this is a repeated offense. A conscientious daughter, she’s had enough this time, and finally calls the police, informing them of her mother’s dementia.
Within minutes, and using only a handful of words, Hammer and his actors paint a discomforting portrait of complicated lives in motion, introducing us to a story at its tipping point. even if Amanda makes it clear that Leslie can’t consent (something her mother’s doctor has also affirmed), Martin’s actions stem from motives more complex than mere selfishness or lust.
That the film opens with a sexual assault is never in doubt, given its violent visual framing. but, it also avoids didacticism — first by centering Martin’s claims of supposedly knowing his wife and recognizing her desires, and then by focusing on Amanda’s immediate regret over getting the authorities involved, if it means potentially separating the aged couple. Martin loves Leslie deeply, and is her primary caregiver, while Amanda and her daughter have only moved temporarily from Newcastle to look after her.
The film moves swiftly into procedural mode as Leslie is subjected to the ostensibly correct legal processes, including a rape kit. But her disease is advanced, so she’s barely verbal, and has little idea of what she’s experiencing. The investigation can’t help but feel dehumanizing, despite Amanda comforting her while doctors examine her in carefully clinical ways. It’s hard not to be thrown for a loop by these increasingly intricate emotional specifics, as though these characters — mere strangers just moments prior — have immediately become family.
We’re not only made observers to dramatic situations, but participants in the moral theatre of Hammer’s Ken Loach-like social realism. Binaries of right and wrong aren’t useful when there’s so much else to consider, from lived histories to knotty dynamics and living situations. Amanda, despite her complaints, wants Martin to continue caring for Leslie, and the more we see them interact, the more we want this for her too.
The film’s heart is in its naturalistic lead performances. Courtenay, as a caregiver with deeply sympathetic layers, exhibits frustration and compassion in equal measure, blending the obstinate protestations of a man in his twilight years with the lifelong tenderness and wisdom that often accompany them. Binoche, meanwhile, rests on a knife’s edge, playing each scene with an undercurrent of exhausted helplessness, as she increasingly loses her grip on what’s right for her mother and stepfather.
but, it’s Calder-Marshall who ends up pivotal to how “Queen at Sea” plays out, both thematically and tonally. She’s tasked with stripping Leslie, a once-complete person, down to her most basic instincts in a manner that still reflects the light of who she used to be. One can easily imagine a different version of her role defined by wild nonverbal gesticulations and cloying desperation. But even more than her co-stars, she turns those instincts inward, resulting in a performance of surprising subtlety that still lucidly communicates each cloudy moment. Her vacant stares are laced with just enough recognizable humanity to make the camera question what, if anything, is going on behind her eyes — a mystery that looms over the entire story.
As the film broaches questions of how this family ought to proceed, it frequently cuts to Sarah’s seemingly unrelated coming-of-age drama, as a teen experiencing her own sexual awakening. That she seldom seems to care about her mother or grandmother is, for better or worse, true to where she is in life. While this may be frustrating to watch, it also makes for an intriguing narrative mirror. Her cutesy fling with a classmate is low-stakes, but when contrasted with the eventualities experienced by both older generations — a mother separated from her husband, and grandparents in need of constant care, who are close to being torn apart — it’s something of a miracle that she’s open to romance at all.
Perhaps there’s some unseen optimism guiding Sarah, imbuing the film with a secretly uplifting quality, despite the gloomy subject matter. Most modern films about dementia — such as Michael Haneke’s “Amour” or Florian Zeller’s “The Father” — tend to center the misery wrought by the disease. While this is true of “Queen at Sea” as well, where it stands apart is in its depiction of the enduring love that makes the loss of memory and function such a tragedy in the first place.
These thematic contours are carved with the utmost care, between Hammer’s script drawing from detailed research on the topics at hand — which extends to casting experts on elder care and sexual assault in supporting roles — and tremendous visual sleight-of-hand from “Train Dreams” DP Adolpho Veloso. The rich 35mm frames are captured with a stillness that emphasizes the haunting emptiness around the characters. Yet the camera injects a phantom urgency into proceedings through Veloso’s use of a reduced shutter angle, which results in a jittery reduction in motion blur typical of action cinema. (You might recognize it from the Omaha Beach sequence in “Saving Private Ryan”).
To employ such a visceral technique in an otherwise restrained drama has the occasional effect of making Leslie’s interactions with the outside world feel like startling impositions. But for the most part, your brain gets used to it despite associating the aesthetic with chaos and momentum. Applying this texture to lengthy scenes of stillness keeps you on edge in subtle, subconscious ways: You might even forget why you’ve been anxious to begin with, or if there was something you were meant to be anticipating at all. It’s like perpetually experiencing the sensation of walking into a room and losing all perception of why you’re there. There are many films on the subject of dementia, but few embody the destabilizing effects of the disease with such precision.
There’s never a moment when the narrative ideas aren’t crystal clear, so you remain emotionally tethered to everything that’s going on. Yet you’re still left adrift — not unlike Leslie, whose primal attachment to Martin is at once a comfort and a source of existential conflict. In perhaps the film’s most striking move, this central drama won’t just leave you in need of soothing, but will provide the necessary comfort too — not unlike the way Amanda slowly comes to view Martin as a vital piece of the puzzle that is, or once was, her mother.
Source: variety.com
