Daniel Isn’t Real

It is all in the title. Lots of films – which won’t be named here to avoid spoil­ing – only reveal the imag­i­nary nature of a character’s ​‘invis­i­ble friend’ as a Big Twist™ right at the cli­max. Yet we know from the very out­set of Adam Egypt Mortimer’s sec­ond fea­ture (co-writ­ten, as with his 2015 debut Some Kind of Hate, with nov­el­ist Bri­an de Leeuw) that, well, Daniel isn’t real.

Rather, he is con­jured as a play­mate, con­fi­dante and guide by the lone­ly young Luke (Grif­fin Robert Faulkn­er) at a moment when he is hav­ing to deal not only with the breakup of his par­ents and the break­down of his schiz­o­phrenic moth­er Claire (Mary Stu­art Mas­ter­son), but also with the trau­ma of wit­ness­ing an arbi­trary act of extreme vio­lence. A sly, cocky trou­ble­mak­er, Daniel (Nathan Reid) plays id to Luke’s ego, until Luke, led dan­ger­ous­ly astray, is forced to lock this part of him­self away.

In oth­er words, the genre appa­ra­tus of demonolo­gy and body hor­ror in Daniel Isn’t Real is express­ly a fig­ment of the adult Luke’s unrav­el­ling sub­jec­tiv­i­ty, as we see his emerg­ing men­tal ill­ness tak­ing over from the inside. Now aged 19 (and played by Miles Rob­bins), Luke must again face Daniel (Patrick Schwarzeneg­ger) who returns from his hid­ing place to reawak­en Luke’s long-repressed cre­ative, con­fi­dent, chaot­ic side, all with trag­ic results.

In keep­ing with the man­ic inte­ri­or­i­ty of its nar­ra­tive, Daniel Isn’t Real is an over­whelm­ing sen­so­ry expe­ri­ence, deeply dis­ori­ent­ing and increas­ing­ly dis­tress­ing. Adult Luke is first seen sit­ting on a lit­er­al edge, and from then on he occu­pies a metaphor­i­cal one too, con­stant­ly at odds with him­self and star­ing, even falling, into the abyss – all thanks to a delu­sion that is very real.