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Preview by: Jack Foley
COLIN Firth is going back to his roots for a dark, Hitchcockian
thriller, that will receive its world premiere at the Sundance
Film Festival.
Following high-profile star turns in the likes of Bridget
Jones’ Diary, Girl
with a Pearl Earring and Love
Actually, not to mention less-memorable performances in the
likes of Hope Springs and
What A Girl Wants, the
popular British star has decided to return to the type of genre
which helped to make a name for him.
Firth stars as Ben, a man who wakes up from a coma in hospital
to discover that he has been in a car crash, which also claimed
the life of his wife, Elisa (Naomie Harris).
With his life in tatters, he attempts to rebuild it by getting
a new job and moving to a new apartment, where he befriends his
attractive neighbor, Charlotte (Mena Suvari).
But his mind begins to play tricks on him, and he suddenly begins
seeing his dead wife everywhere, which prompts him to visit his
childhood therapist for help.
Charlotte, however, takes him to see a psychic instead, who gives
him the chilling news that she senses his wife might still be
alive.
And to make matters worse, someone is moving things around in
his apartment and destroying cherished possessions, while the
police investigate him for murder.
When discussing the reasons behind taking on the project, Firth
told Premiere magazine that it reminded him ‘a little bit
of paranoia films I liked in the '70s, some of the Polanski films
and Don't Look Now’.
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"It's unashamedly trying to mess with your mind," he
added.
While the website, Firth.com contains the following statement:
"Trauma may seem a departure from what I'm now known for,
but I was appearing in quirky features, like Tumbledown, about
the horrors of war, and Apartment Zero, about the human psyche's
dark side, way before I took on Darcy.
"Ben is the sort of role that was my territory in the early
days. Director, Marc Evans, and I worked together on the Ruth
Rendell TV movie, Master of the Moor, and I thought he was brilliant,
so I wanted to join him again, but our numerous attempts never
quite panned out.
"Then Trauma came out of leftfield and intrigued me enough
to sign on to what was clearly going to be an interesting journey."
Firth goes on to state that his main motivation for doing anything
these days is to work with people he has always wanted to collaborate
with, and Trauma represented a perfect opportunity to do so, as
well as a good, twisting movie.
And the hype surrounding the film ahead of its debut at Sundance
is strong, particularly as the preview on the festival website
states that ‘stunning camerawork and startling sound design
create an atmosphere of steely anxiety that permeates every frame
of Trauma, the postmodern psychological chiller directed by Marc
Evans’.
It adds that ‘the writing is crisp and precise, and the
cinematography is exquisite’, while ‘the tone, sustained
by the entire cast, creates the ideal conditions for dread to
grow just under the surface’.
"In Trauma, Evans expertly builds tension by slowly and
deliberately stacking images, reshuffling them, and letting them
fall where they will," it concludes.
The film will open in UK cinemas later this year.
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