Movie review: Honor Swinton Byrne makes an extraordinary debut in 'The Souvenir'

“The Souvenir” - ★ ★ ★

It was only weeks before production was starting on “The Souvenir,” the story goes, and British director Joanna Hogg and her friend, actress Tilda Swinton, still didn't have a lead actress.

The role of Julie, an affluent, 20-something film student in 1980s London, was loosely based on Hogg herself. Swinton was slated to play the mother. Suddenly the two friends realized they'd been ignoring the obvious choice: Swinton's then 21-year-old daughter, Honor Swinton Byrne, who'd appeared in one film as a child and had no plans to be an actress.

The result is a fairly smashing debut, a performance so genuine and lived-in that Swinton Byrne may have the film world begging her to reconsider her plans to study psychology and neuroscience.

One of Hogg's key assets here is having a real-life mother and daughter duo; rarely has a film portrayed so authentically the give-and-take, the push-and-pull that occurs specifically between a middle-aged parent and her young-adult offspring.

As we meet Julie, she's pitching her first feature, based in the shipbuilding city of Sunderland in northern England - a world far from her own privileged corner of Knightsbridge in London.

Julie is all earnest ambition, but lacks assurance. Then she meets Anthony, her polar opposite. All self-satisfaction and intellectual swagger, he takes drags off his cigarette and makes pronouncements on life, art and Julie. He works for the Foreign Office - or so he says - and, as portrayed by roguishly handsome Tom Burke, is both comforting and frightening at once.

It begins platonically. But it's clear that Anthony's planning to seduce Julie, and we wince in anticipation. We especially cringe when he brings her sexy lingerie, launching the sexual relationship we know will bring her pain. And that's even before we learn that Anthony's a heroin addict.

We can only steel ourselves as we watch Julie fall ever deeper, against her own judgment. When she comes home one day and he informs her they've been robbed, with all her jewelry gone, it's somehow SHE who ends up comforting HIM.

Meanwhile, Julie's borrowing money from her well-meaning mother, so she can give Anthony money. Anthony falls deeper into his addiction, and Julie can't find a way to shake off his hold. It's excruciating to watch.

Yet another reason for the genuine feel of Hogg's work stems from her acute attention to physical detail. She's based Julie's apartment on her own student digs. The soundtrack is full of period-appropriate gems like Joe Jackson's “Is She Really Going Out With Him?” - definitely an appropriate question here.

“We can all be sincere, but what's it all for?” Anthony says to Julie at one point, referring in a typically snobbish way to her film aesthetic.

But sincerity is what anchors this film - especially Swinton Byrne's astonishingly sincere performance. Maybe neuroscience can wait.

<b>Starring:</b> Honor Swinton Byrne, Tilda Swinton, Tom Burke

<b>Directed by:</b> Joanna Hogg

<b>Other:</b> An A24 release. Rated R for sexual situations, nudity, drug material and language. 119 minutes