REVIEW #90 Here Are The Young Men (2020)

Here Are The Young Men is a drama directed by Eoin Macken and follows a group of teenagers from Dublin as they transition out of school and into a life without purpose, fuelled by alcohol and drugs. This life affects each of these teens differently, one a monster, one mentally ill and one who can’t help but continue to make bad decisions. 

CAST & THE ACTING 

I was really impressed by this cast, I am a big fan of most of the actors and they didn’t disappoint because the acting in this film is brilliant. Dean-Charles Chapman plays Matthew, Finn Cole is Kearney and Ferdia Walsh-Peelo plays Kez. They make up the main three characters for the film and they deliver really strong performances. Kearney is a real monster and Finn Cole’s performance is that good that a lot of his scenes made me feel so uncomfortable which was the purpose of his character. He also does well to portray the decline of Kearney, where he becomes more and more of a psychopath as the film goes on. Chapman’s performance was also great because he also portrayed a mental decline but instead it was the effects of just being friends with Kearney and the guilt that comes with simply being so easily led astray by his friend. His portrayal of the drug and alcohol abuse was also very convincing. Anya Taylor-Joy played Jen in the film and as usual she understood the assignment completely! Although she was probably under utilised, she still done well in the scenes she was a part of. There is also a surprise appearance from Travis Fimmel as the TV presenter in the film, a role I assumed to be insignificant but actually he actually played a huge part at representing the mental state of the other characters. There are plenty of other familiar faces that pop up in the film too, the stacked cast is really what drew me into this film.

PLOT & THE STORYLINE 

This is the area where most of the other reviews I have read slated the film, but I think they may have taken it too literal. There was criticism of there not being any real consequences in the film. There are terrible things done by some of the characters and there are pretty much no consequences for those actions but I think Here Are The Young Men is hugely representational. I believe it just wants to emphasise the worse case scenario when young people are unguided and making one bad decision after another (Matthew) but they also showed a character that just can’t be helped, a monster that will always be bad (Kearney). It also highlights the effects of toxic masculinity and the dangers of not pulling up friends for their actions. Again they done this by showing a worse case scenario situation but I actually enjoyed that element because the shock factor made the message sink in. They used Finn Cole to creat a monster in Kearney and he was meant to make the audience feel uncomfortable, to shock them and that’s absolutely what he did. 

To emphasise my point on the film being very representational, the TV presenter and the metaphorical game show was an element I really liked about the film. I think it was a brave approach by the director because it’s not something I see very often in film but it worked well at portraying the mental state of Kearney and what made him how he is and what made him tick. The start of the film is a little slow paced but it does improve as the film goes on. The ending is a little disappointing, I think a better ending would have been Matthew getting Kearney arrested or something along those lines, I won’t give away exactly what happens but it’s just a little extreme. But the film is full of things like that so I’m not surprised.

CINEMATOGRAPHY & SPECIAL EFFECTS 

I was impressed by the cinematography throughout the film! James Mather the cinematographer, used a variety of camera techniques; from blurred motion with bright colours to emphasise the heavy drug use, to time lapse which I felt represented the boys wasting their lives away. It looked good and it was a nice way to incorporate effective cinematography on a really low budget. I think the special effects were probably created from the different camera techniques and lenses, there certainly wasn’t any CGI and I wouldn’t expect any in a coming of age film like this. I think the TV show scenes looked good and it was really trippy at times which was understandable because they were trying to illustrate Kearney’s crazy mind. 

OVERALL (6.8/10)

This is way above any official ratings for the film but I’m fine with that. I loved the cast and I think everyone delivered fantastic performances that created interesting characters that really had a strong impact on the audience. The film, in my opinion, is very representational and shouldn’t be taken to literally, yes there aren’t really any true consequence for the characters actions but I think it’s because the director wanted to show you just how bad things could get if things were left unchanged or no one intervened. Especially when it comes to Kearney’s character, who Finn Cole portrayed brilliantly. I would have changed the ending to perhaps make it a little more realistic and I would have liked to have seen Anya Taylor-Joy utilised a little more but other then that I think it’s good film which impressed me considering it was done on a very low budget. 

Thanks for reading.

Callan