Remem­ber­ing Tom Hid­dle­ston as Joan­na Hogg’s muse

There’s no deny­ing that Tom Hiddleston’s got range. He’s done Shake­speare, played a swag­ger­ing action hero, depres­sive roman­tic vam­pire, and an Asgar­dian anti-hero. But you might not be famil­iar with his fruit­ful ear­ly col­lab­o­ra­tions with The Sou­venir direc­tor Joan­na Hogg, whose min­i­mal aes­thet­ic would seem to run counter to Hiddleston’s flashier roles. In fact, Hogg ​‘dis­cov­ered’ Hid­dle­ston, who had only starred in TV movies and seri­als before being cast at 25 in her debut fea­ture, 2007’s Unre­lat­ed, where he plays the old­er woman protagonist’s ten­u­ous love inter­est, Oakley.

Cen­tered on Anna, a mar­ried forty-some­thing, Unre­lat­ed is about a sort of mid-life cri­sis when the struc­tures that dic­tate mid­dle-life seem to break down. In this case, it’s a shaky mar­riage back in Lon­don that sends Anna to Tus­cany to join her long-time friend’s fam­i­ly retreat. Turned off by the drab mar­ried cou­ples her own age, she grav­i­tates towards the younger peo­ple. There’s cru­el­ty to his insu­lar hedo­nism, but Anna is nev­er­the­less drawn to Oakley’s vivac­i­ty and mild suggestiveness.

Oak­ley is cal­cu­lat­ing, arro­gant, mag­net­ic and unhinged in the way only monied youth can be. He’s eager to prove his lib­er­a­tion, reck­less­ly dri­ving a bor­rowed car through sun-kissed pas­tures as if in a music video, and quick to bury the fault fol­low­ing the inevitable crash. Used to com­mand­ing his under­lings, in Anna he sees the oppor­tu­ni­ty for a nov­el type of seduc­tion. At the din­ner table he’s fas­ci­nat­ed with Anna’s con­fes­sions of teenage rebel­lion, mea­sur­ing her up before lat­er chal­leng­ing her into tak­ing shots, smok­ing spliffs, and com­muning in his mayhem.

His staid, self-seri­ous father chal­lenges his fledg­ling alpha male sta­tus. When he express­es con­cern over his son’s smok­ing, Oak­ley retorts with aris­to­crat­ic brava­do: ​“I’d say it was none of your busi­ness, sir!” These moments of defi­ance hap­pen con­stant­ly, and Hid­dle­ston cap­tures his exploits with the sat­is­fac­tion of an unbro­ken win­ning streak in a game of chance.

Part boy part man, Oakley’s body lan­guage sug­gests juve­nile rest­less­ness, slouch­ing to sug­gest bore­dom or indif­fer­ence, or shot through with adren­a­line as he push­es a shop­ping cart in full sprint. Often bare-chest­ed, or don­ning an unbut­toned white shirt, he wields his phys­i­cal­i­ty inti­mate­ly and with play­ful ambi­gu­i­ty. He leans dubi­ous­ly close into Anna while reach­ing over the break­fast table, takes hold of her biki­ni-clad body as a shield in a mud-sling­ing bat­tle. The build-up to a phys­i­cal encounter is near­ly cer­tain, but when Anna invites him to spend the night with her, he’s unin­ter­est­ed. His lips curl up to a broad, know­ing smile, and with faux-gen­tile airs declares, ​“I’d bet­ter not,” effec­tive­ly end­ing what­ev­er romance presumed.

Hogg’s next fea­ture, 2010’s Arch­i­pel­ago, focus­es on Hiddleston’s Edward, who is old­er, more sym­pa­thet­ic, and lack­ing Oakley’s punk­ish ten­den­cies. He is, how­ev­er, sim­i­lar­ly afflu­ent and scram­bling to assert a self-fash­ioned iden­ti­ty. Edward is head­ing to Africa for nine months as a vol­un­teer sex edu­ca­tor, prompt­ing a reunion with his fam­i­ly at their home in the Scil­ly Isles. He intends to make a dif­fer­ence even if his efforts only impact a sin­gle child, he explains enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly at a moun­tain­side pic­nic to an unmoved audi­ence. His moth­er is skep­ti­cal, and his neu­rot­ic sis­ter, Cyn­thia, is bit­ter at her brother’s moral­ly supe­ri­or whims.

Edward’s neat sweaters and tight­ly wound scarves mock­ing­ly sug­gest an incom­pat­i­bil­i­ty with the demands of African vol­un­teer work. Nev­er­the­less, he assumes a cer­tain rar­efied world­ly purview of mate­r­i­al indif­fer­ence and gen­eros­i­ty. A spat breaks out when he sug­gests they invite Rose, the pret­ty in-house cook, to join them for din­ner. Cyn­thia main­tains that Rose is an employ­ee and unin­ter­est­ed in such a ges­ture, which esca­lates into a heat­ed string of per­son­al attacks.And so the dra­ma unfolds, as a slow pick­ing apart of the family’s dys­func­tions through the obser­va­tion­al gaze of Hogg’s cam­era, which seems to stum­ble upon at-first-glance banal inter­ac­tions to reveal hid­den vulnerabilities.

Arch­i­pel­ago marks the peak of Hiddleston’s nat­u­ral­is­tic abil­i­ties, accen­tu­at­ed all the more because Hogg is not one to explain away the mys­tery of her char­ac­ters. Edward is sweet and well-inten­tioned, but he’s also mired with self-doubt, and his silence speaks more to his con­flict­ed state of mind than his con­ver­sa­tion. As he reads a let­ter from Rose sig­nalling her ear­ly depar­ture, Hiddleston’s mouth forms a guilty pout. His gaze is gen­tle and solemn as he reflects on the clear vio­lence that exists between his fam­i­ly, indi­cat­ing regret and res­ig­na­tion to undis­closed ends off-screen.

Hiddleston’s minor role as chic real estate bro­ker in 2013’s Exhi­bi­tion is like a seam­less, mature ver­sion of Oak­ley and Edward. Name­less, his char­ac­ter assured­ly ges­tic­u­lates with one hand as he explains the show­ing process, his body lean­ing back against a chair in cock­sure relax­ation. Mean­while D, one of the home sell­ers, leans anx­ious­ly against the table as she lists off her con­cerns. Hiddleston’s scenes make up less than 10 min­utes of the film’s run­time, but his role car­ries shades of Oakley’s self-amused spunk minus the des­per­a­tion. There’s a sleek, dry humour to Hiddleston’s ful­ly-formed real estate agent, who’s skilled in deliv­er­ing cringe-induc­ing news to his clients in a suave manner.

This tri­fec­ta of per­for­mances would seem to trace Hiddleston’s on-screen com­ing-of-age, from ram­bunc­tious stu­dent to twen­tysome­thing in the throes of exis­ten­tial cri­sis to man­i­cured busi­ness type. An air of per­for­ma­tive sophis­ti­ca­tion runs through these per­for­mances, whether it be for impress­ing a woman, express­ing com­mit­ment to a set of val­ues, or putting skep­ti­cal clients at ease. Hid­dle­ston does pomp and cool well, but his work with Hogg shows this as a work of com­pen­sa­tion, adding a del­i­cate lay­er of human­i­ty beneath the veneer.