‘Silver Haze’ movie review: a promising yet slightly messy tale about healing from past trauma
Sacha Polak has reteamed with actor Vicky Knight for a complex tale of love, trauma and moving forward from the past – Silver Haze. This is a film that intricately analyses what it means to seek revenge and answers for pain, with beautiful performances from Knight, Esmé Creed-Miles and Angela Bruce. It’s far from perfect, but Polak presents some compelling, heavy themes here, which are treated with genuine care and understanding.
Polak previously directed Knight in the moving Dirty God, a story about a woman who is attacked with acid by her ex-partner. This time, Knight stars as a burn victim, Franky, having been caught in a fire as a child. Her character’s story mirrors her real-life experiences of receiving severe burns from a fire caused by arson when she was eight, with both Knight and her character also working as healthcare assistants.
Meanwhile, Creed-Miles, the daughter of Samantha Morton, plays a troubled patient named Florence, who Franky meets while working in the hospital after she tries to kill herself. Both have extremely troubled pasts, and they quickly find a kinship within each other, which turns into a romantic relationship. However, some of Franky’s family are disgusted by their discovery that she is into girls, leading the couple to escape to the seaside, where Florence lives with her autistic brother, Jack and foster mum, Alice.
The movie follows the tradition of British social realism, undoubtedly drawing from works by the likes of Mike Leigh and Andrea Arnold – painting an honest and realistic depiction of working-class life. Knight is utterly convincing as Franky, evidently aided by her real-life experiences. She is simultaneously funny, brash, loving, violent and vulnerable, with Polak taking a nuanced look at what it means to live a life without closure. Franky wants answers as to why the pub was deliberately set on fire with her in it, and she wants her absent father to suffer for his neglect. The self-destructive Florence is well-equipped to help her, suggesting they act out their own form of revenge.
Yet, Polak uses intimately explored relationships to chart Franky’s development as a character, suggesting that finding potent connections, such as an unlikely familial bond with Alice, is an essential healing tool. There are moments of genuine misery and pessimism, such as homophobia, violence and terminal illness. Still, there’s always another side of the coin, offering up glimmers of light peaking through the cracks. This isn’t a movie preoccupied with fetishising pain and the struggles of working-class and mentally ill people; rather, Silver Haze feels like a well-needed documentation of the kind of characters who are rarely treated with nuance and depth on-screen.
Polak’s film is dynamic and has its share of moving moments – there is real promise here. Yet, you can’t help but feel like the movie begins to drag on, cramming in many sequences that could be better executed or explored in further detail. There are also some questionable lines of dialogue, such as Florence’s answering, “I’ve got a broken heart,” when Franky asks what’s led her to be hospitalised. Then, when she asks Florence who broke it, she replies, “Everyone,” as though she’s Effy from Skins.
The movie seems a bit unsure of itself at times, and there are moments where Franky and Florence start arguing seemingly out of nowhere, hurling truly horrible insults that make you wonder why they were ever together in the first place. Of course, their respective traumas come into play here, but some scenes simply feel confusing. Other times, certain issues appear to be resolved in an instant, with the pair seemingly forgiving each other just like that.
Silver Haze is slightly messy at times, but that’s not to say that it isn’t also emotive and resonant, with the characters truly feeling like real people. Polak’s film is worth the watch, but it isn’t exactly groundbreaking. Still, it teases exciting futures for Knight and Creed-Miles.
