"Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can and address yourself to the task of behaving better next time. On no account brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best way of getting clean."
- Adolph Huxley, Brave New World
Lenny Abrahamson's "What Richard Did" not only portrays said "rolling in the muck," but it immerses the viewer in the heartbreaking process of seeking atonement despite being unable to act. The end result is a powerful, breathtaking film that will leave the viewer emotionally drained, but transformed.
Richard Karlsen (Jack Reynor) is the life of the party. As the film commences, Richard is driving a group of friends out to his family's beach house. Everything seems to revolve around him and yet, Richard seems to want more. He spots Lara (Róisín Murphy) during an outdoor get together and the two slowly engage in a seemingly fulfilling relationship. However, there is one caveat. Lisa former flame Conor (Sam Keeley) will not leave her alone and seems to show up at the most inopportune moments. "The Green-eyed monster" jealousy slowly starts to take hold of Richard, placing his relationship with Lara in great peril. At a party, hell breaks loose and Richard unknowingly causes a tragedy to take place. For the remainder of the film, the young man sinks lower and lower in his attempts to find a cure to destructive guilt.
The film is nothing if not a nuanced character study of a young man's descent into madness and Reynor is the ideal actor to take on the role. The first image of the film reflects Richard's state perfectly. He sits at the steering wheel with two other friends in the car; he is in control and surrounded by people that admire him. But he is more than just the popular guy in school or the model athlete. He protects one of his under-aged friends from being forced into her first sexual encounter and gets another one of his friends out of trouble with his mother. He even tells Lara at one point that he has his whole future planned out.
Conversely, his counterpart Connor works for his attention (he sings folksongs) and is an emotional wreck that can't hold his liquor. Keeley is extremely unpredictable and while he maintains a calm and even gentle attitude about him, he comes off as threatening in many instances. It isn't difficult to see why Lara would leave Connor to be with Richard. However, the relationship has some unsettling and uneasy moments mainly because Lara seems out-of-sorts for most of it and Richard seems to feel like he is losing control over her and her feelings. In one brilliant moment Richard lets Lara converse with an emotional Connor in the park. As he looks over, the camera frames in him a medium wide shot. The camera moves in and out of focus while the iris constantly racks to allow more piercing sunlight into the lens. While the image is a bit uncomfortable to watch, it allows the viewer to feel the difficulty that Richard is having in that moment. Reynor no longer has that juvenile aloofness about him; instead, his eyes portray a simmering pot slowly moving toward its boiling point. At the climactic party the boiling point has been reached and Richard sits alone and engages with no one; the environment in which he reveled early in the film no longer seems to be welcoming for him (and it never will be again). Once the act has been committed, Richard undergoes a process of rejection from all around him (including his own father) and becomes increasingly isolated from the world. And then the boy who was in complete control battles to keep his emotions in check. In one sequence he is sent to the beach home by himself and in a moment of tragic proportions he lets out his pent up anger in a whirl of unbridled fury; the camera whips about in unpredictable fashion as Richard howls and bangs everything in sight. The rational man has given way to his animal instincts. The descent only continues after this.
Abrahamson does a masterful job of balancing the film so that even when it delves into heavy subject matter it never feels manipulative or over-the-top. This is achieved by maintaining lightness in the early sections of the film. Parties, social gatherings, and immature teenage conversation are sprinkled throughout the opening of the film; it successfully keeps the viewer off guard in regards to expectations or direction of the picture. His portrayal of the romance in its initial stages is done in a dreamy montage in which the two get to know one another. However, as the film progresses and Richard's mania grows the entire world seems to change. The joking ends; in fact conversations in general become disparate and rare as silence takes over. The wild parties have an empty feel about them before they vanish completely. The contained vivacity of color gives way to bleaker imagery. The wide camera angles are replaced with tight, constraining, claustrophobic close-ups. The pacing of the film slows down considerably as well with sequences of utter silences littered about. Richard's descent and release of emotions is given an equally nuanced arc. Richard won't cry in scenes following the act, but when he finally does, his back is turned to the viewer; almost a reflection of the calculating character still keeping his distance. Eventually that escalates until Richard breaks loose in the aforementioned scene at the beach house.
The remainder of the performances are equally nuanced with Murphy and Lars Mikkelsen (as Richard's father) being the standouts. Murphy's Lara, like Connor, is an ideal opposite to Richard in every way. While he is confident and collected, she seems moody and unstable. While he is charming and full of smiles, she is awkward and rarely grins or laughs. While he is an adamant extrovert, she is the ultimate introvert. While his is predictable and in control, she is virtually impossible to read. She seems to love Richard, but doesn't seem happy with him and constantly seeks out Connor.
If not for the aforementioned scene in which Richard lets out his pent of frustrations Mikkelsen would likely carry the most moving scene in the entire film. As Richard reveals his action, Mikkelsen presents the most honest and powerful response of a father coming to terms with his fallen son. Abrahamson frames him in a tight close-up that reveals a potent struggle of a man trying to contain himself; but it shows a tremendous amount of indecision. Will he cry? Will he slap Richard in the face? Will he say nothing? All of these questions jump to one's mind during this moment. When Mikkelsen does answer those questions, the results are heart wrenching at the very least.
Richard rolls in the muck for much of the film and by the end of it, it is impossible for the viewer to not feel dirtied and tainted by his inner turmoil. The film will undoubtedly be too difficult for some, but for those with fortitude, "What Richard Did" will create an immersive experience about the burden of guilt and its decaying power.