Still Life
Don't ignore the quiet ones; this film hides a tenderness and humanity that is extraordinarily powerful.
Overview
You might not know the name Eddie Marsan, but odds are you'd recognise his face. With a list of film credits that includes The World's End, War Horse, V for Vendetta as well as the Mission: Impossible and Sherlock Holmes franchises, he's the kind of unflashy, underappreciated character actor who disappears into whatever role he's given. Still Life, the new film from Full Monty producer Uberto Pasolini, marks a rare opportunity for Marsan to take centre stage. The result is so beautifully affecting you'll wonder why it doesn't happen more often.
Indeed, Marsan's part in Still Life feels like the one he was born to play. A middle-aged London municipal officer, John May's job is to see to the affairs of people who have recently died. He goes about his work with minimal fuss and in return gets little thanks for his efforts. He's a quiet man, dignified but lonely, and seemingly more comfortable around the dead than he is the living.
Early on in the film, May's smarmy new boss calls him into his office and informs him that he'll be downsized out of a job. May, being the man that he is, doesn't protest, only asking that he be able to finish his last case: tracking down the relatives of a grizzled military serviceman who just happened to reside in the same crumby apartment block as he does.
As the title suggests, Still Life isn't particularly fast paced. Concerned with the sad, solitary minutiae of everyday life, Pasolini's direction is intentionally reserved — the drab whites, greys and blues of May's office and empty flat a reflection of his unremarkable life.
Yet the film is not boring or bleak; on the contrary, Still Life possesses a tenderness and humanity that is extraordinarily powerful. It's a film that celebrates selfless acts of kindness, and going beyond the call of duty because it's simply the right thing to do. A few moments skew towards mawkishness, admittedly, but for the most part the balance is just right.
In a turn that pays tribute to thousands of unremembered lives, Marsan's performance could hardly be more perfect. It's in large part thanks to his wonderful work that Still Life resonates to the degree that it does. If more filmmakers entrusted their projects to actors like Marsan, their movies would be all the better for it.
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