Morvern Callar Rant

"What planet are you on?!"

Snapped Morvern Callar's best friend, Lana, as they were hopelessly sitting in the middle of the desert as Morvern looks away and smiles.

My thoughts exactly.

Never has a film made me so infuriated and enraged that it sent me constantly yelling at the screen as if the characters could hear me. Luckily, I was watching this alone.

If this was the director, Lynne Ramsey's intention, then I believe she has succeeded. What is this film called? Morvern Callar. "What the hell is a Morvern Callar?" That was my initial reaction once my friend, who recommended this film, handed the DVD to me in which he replied, "it's a name. The protagonist's name." A very strange name (a female one) but then again she is a strange character and this is indeed a strange film.

In this film, Morvern Callar finds out her boyfriend has committed suicide and has left a suicide note, a mixtape and a full manuscript of his unpublished novel and has requested his girlfriend to send it to the publisher. So what does our "protagonist" do? Well, she replaces the author's name with hers and sends it off. That's not all. She then collects his funeral arrangement money from his own account and takes her best friend, Lanna, to a holiday in Spain.

Now you are most probably thinking that the protagonist is immediately unlikeable by simply hearing what it's about, those were my thoughts. However, after watching the movie... I detested her even more!

Of course, there are two sides to this incident and a logical reason as to why she has done this selfish deed and taking advantage of someone's death and the fact that he cannot do anything about it, for instance: how has he treated Morvern, was he faithful, did he have any affairs? All these questions were in mind before watching this film, I was expecting this film to be a tragedy. There would be a severe consequence to Morvern's actions to make her learn a lesson, such as: two wrongs don't make a right,

So does this film end out tragic? Does this character get her just desserts? Well... yes and no. In the end, she sells the novel of £100,000 and finally has the freedom to leave her hometown in Scotland. But Lana refuses to go with her so Morvern decides to leave by herself. So she won the prize but she lost her friend and home. The hell with that! She can buy another friend with all that money she just got! But seriously, my point is that her resolution is not exactly tragic although, yes, money is not the route of all happiness.

One more thing that I don't like about Morvern is just simply her and the way that she acts. Watching her mannerisms from scene to scene can be daunting, the character would have been much more forgivable if she acted like a proper human being! One scene that made my blood boil in particular was when she finally has a meeting with the publishers and she barely says anything. She just stares off into space smiling as if she has a million other better things to do than have a important discussion on making a deal with a publishing company! As I writer, I was enraged by this because tons and tons of manuscripts get sent day in and day out and get constantly rejected much to the writer's dismay who probably put their blood, sweat and tears into their work. Whereas you have a major fraud who does not even know what the book is about, except for the fact that her boyfriend wrote it dedicated to her which would at least spark her own interest to read it! Whenever she is asked a question about her "work" she barely even attempts to answer. We can also tell that apparently the novel is so good since the publishers are actually begging her to make a deal with them, whilst she still says nothing, which makes it even more frustrating. It would have been slightly forgivable if she was beginning to consider changing her mind not make the deal at all... but she does after all that nonsense of acting like a bloody two year old.

Although I am expressing my anger and hatred towards this film, perhaps this is was Lynne Ramsey intention. Perhaps a film is not always supposed to be liked, however a filmmaker does want to be appreciated for the hard work they put into, and for that, I do. This film was incredibly made in terms of lighting and colour. This film had a chilling opening scene where it depicts the discovery of Morven's boyfriends' body which showed the skin and bone on Morvern's hand caressing her boyfriend's hand signifying death which shows how severely this has affected our protagonist despite showing little to none emotion.

Maybe my rant does seem one-sided, hatred filled and non accurate, nevertheless, it is a rant. You either agree with me or you don't and that's perfectly fine. My friend saw something special in this film and constantly obsesses over it since he is a huge Lynne Ramsey fan. I have nothing against that, however he also sticks up for Morvern in some way and explains the intentions of this fascinating yet frustrating character. Morvern Callar is one of those films that you usually watch at first and you either don't get, hate or generally get confused but once you watch it a second, a third or a bloody thirty seventh... you gradually grow to admire it. Much like David Lynch's Eraserhead (1997) or Stanley Kubrik's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Morvern Callar, athough narrative based is somewhat Avant Garde/surreal as it does provide symbolism and is ofcourse character based and Morvern Callar's mannerisms are indeed surreal. You begin to understand this character may not be likeable or heroic but she is certainly relatable. She represents freedom and wanting to escape. I sincerely hope Lynn Ramsey will create more interesting and likeable characters in her future career.