Film Review: I Want You (1998)

A year after covering the most infamous episode of Yugoslav bloody dissolution in Welcome to Sarajevo, British film director Michael Winterbottom used some of the acting talents from that part of the world in his drama I Want You. The protagonist is Martin (played by Alessandro Nivola), a man who has spent nine years in prison for murder. He returns to his native seaside town after being paroled. He tries to restart relationship with girlfriend Helen (played by Rachel Weisz), who works as hairdresser. She doesn’t want anything to do with him because, among other things, she accumulated small army of potential suitors that include Bob (played by Ben Daniels), local radio DJ. However, nobody is obsessed with Helen like Honda (played by Luka Petrušić), 14-year old immigrant from former Yugoslavia who is mute due to childhood trauma. In order to compensate for his own lack of communication, he spends all of his free time trying to record other people speak, including in their most intimate moments. That includes sex life of Smokey (played by Labina Mitevska), his own sister. He finally manages to befriend Helen and two of them start sharing their darkest secrets.

In I Want You Winterbottom paints the picture of Britain very different from those made his colleagues in romantic comedies set in “cool Britannia”. The country is full of backward and bleak provincial landscapes populated by people struck by unsolvable problems. Winterbottom underlines his pessimistic world view with Slawomir Idziak’s cinematography dominated by grey tones. Script by Irish writer Eoian McNamee also took great care to burden all of the character with some form of social pathology. Even the sex scenes in the film are depicted naturalistically, without any romantic undertones and in quite non-erotic way. The cast, that includes young Croatian actor Luka Petrušić in his first feature film role, is good. Rachel Weisz, who took some time before becoming a Hollywood star, is very good in serious dramatic role. Soundtrack by Adrian Johnston is also good, although Winterbottom seems to prefer Elvis Costello’s song “I Want You” as theme song. Film maintains generally good impression until the ending, which is likely to disappoint many viewers. Despite that, I Want You can be recommended as “art film” made in a way that could be appreciated by regular viewers.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

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