Franklyn (2008)

From relatively new and unknown director Gerald McMorrow, Franklyn is an ambitious film that follows four main characters and four main plots. By the end they should all converge in a way that makes sense. Do they? For the most part.

The main story among the main stories is that of Jonathan Preest (played by Ryan Phillippe): an atheist detective in a bizarre parallel universe called Meanwhile City (ha ha, very clever). It is important to note that he is an atheist as the city is dominated by religion; religion of any kind, including worshiping washing machines. This abundance of religion is a means of controlling the populace and it is a law that every citizen must belong to a religion, however mundane. Preest lives in a science fiction film noir and is out to kill a man who sacrificed a young girl in a religious ceremony. While this is happening there are three other stories that take place in modern London. One is of a man (played by Bernard Hill) looking for his son, another is of a woman named Emilia Bryant (Eva Green) who is continuously faking and recording her own suicide attempts for a project (though each suicide attempt brings her closer and closer to the real thing), and finally of a man named Milo (Sam Riley) who just cancelled his wedding and is looking for his childhood sweetheart. Each story is told simultaneously and all lead towards one inevitable conclusion. The stories are all tied together with themes such as loss, faith, fantasy, and love.

To start off, there are a few things that work incredibly well in this film. One of them is the look, especially considering the budget. Meanwhile City is an impressing setting and convincing in its depiction. It’s dark, foggy, grimy, and ugly, sporting colorful inhabitants who easily suit the location. Preest wears a mask that consists of two gaping black eyes and while the world he lives in is a strange one filled with people wearing costumes and masks, his still manages to stand out due to his blank and emotionless features. This also fits his views and separates him both physically and psychologically from the world around him without making him stand out to the point where he doesn’t belong. The scenes in this world are shot in a realistic manner using a lot of handheld cameras, while the real world of London is shot in a way that more emphasizes the fantastic nature of the film. It’s a strange contrast that fits well into the film’s tone. For all outward appearances, the film simply looks good.

Where the film doesn’t work so well is in tying together the four stories. In the end they all run together, but they don’t all seem to connect as well as they should and there are a few things that are never fully explained. The father and the Preest storyline converge perfectly and makes the most sense at the end. The Emilia storyline feels pretty detached from the Preest and father storyline, though the climax puts her into a very interesting situation given her story. The Milo one on the other hand feels mostly unnecessary, even at the end. While he shares certain thematic elements with the other stories, it doesn’t connect as well to the Preest storyline at all, which has the most screen time and serves as the driving force of the narrative.

There is also a janitor character that may have some kind of mystical or spiritual purpose, but it is never fully concluded or even given a satisfactory explanation. There is one scene where the father gives the man a picture of his son and asks him if he’s seen him. The janitor looks like he doesn’t recognize the man in the picture and begins to give it back but suddenly looks again and it seems he’s beginning to recognize him…but he doesn’t. It turns out that he doesn’t know the father’s son. This never comes up again and these two characters never share another moment on screen making this entire exchange pointless.

The suicide scenes of Emilia often don’t seem to even belong in the film while most of the Milo storyline seems pointless. This is a film that is about half great, and half tangled. Certain elements work perfectly and the film looks amazing, particularly in Meanwhile City, a setting that is as bizarre and fascinating as the city of Marc Caro and Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s The City of Lost Children. Unfortunately, Franklyn is ultimately bogged down by unnecessary scenes and strands of the plot that are left entirely in the dark.