Eter­nal Beauty

The char­ac­ters in Craig Roberts’ sec­ond direc­to­r­i­al fea­ture have a pen­chant for say­ing, ​“I’m in my oils.” To be in one’s ​“oils”, it appears, is to be at your best, rest­ing com­fort­ably in sur­round­ings that nour­ish and soothe. A hap­py place, in oth­er words. The phrase even acts as the title of a paint­ing that appears in var­i­ous loca­tions through­out the film – yet its insis­tent rep­e­ti­tion soon becomes more of a dik­tat than a truth.

The search for such a state of being is at the heart of this film. The path to hap­pi­ness for Jane (Sal­ly Hawkins), a para­noid schiz­o­phrenic, seems tricky on the sur­face, but as her con­ceit­ed fam­i­ly mem­bers try to con­vince her of their own ​“oils” the rel­a­tiv­i­ty and com­plex­i­ties of hap­pi­ness them­selves become all the more apparent.

Flash­backs to Jane as a young woman (a dis­ap­point­ing­ly brief appear­ance from Morfy­dd Clark) detail the cause and con­se­quences of her first men­tal break­down while, mov­ing for­wards, she learns to adapt to her family’s unwill­ing­ness to under­stand her. This dynam­ic is crys­tallised in an ear­ly scene in which Jane wraps her own Christ­mas presents for her bewil­dered fam­i­ly to give to her before pre­sent­ing them with the receipts for reimbursement.

Hawkins is excel­lent, her per­for­mance del­i­cate­ly skit­tish, soft­ly-spo­ken and often very fun­ny. It is evi­dent that this char­ac­ter, based on some­one close to the direc­tor accord­ing to inter­views, has been con­struct­ed with the ten­der­est care and insight, shaped by fine details and idio­syn­crasies. Her sis­ters, played with mox­ie and sen­si­tiv­i­ty by Bil­lie Piper and Alice Lowe, have only glimpses of hid­den depth. They fall into their roles more as car­i­ca­tures than devel­oped, engag­ing addi­tions to a nar­ra­tive which feels some­what wasteful.

Per­haps this is indica­tive of the world Jane occu­pies – her men­tal ill­ness is framed as the thing that makes her dis­tinct­ly pow­er­ful. Yet as her sib­lings are giv­en very lit­tle to do, they inevitably fall too flat. Plot­lines are also con­cerned pri­mar­i­ly with these women’s rela­tion­ships with men and lit­tle else – fur­ther evi­dence of unimag­i­na­tive char­ac­ter development.

Even the film’s vibrant styling and set design lacks a punch, its Twin Peaks meets Wes Ander­son lovechild aes­thet­ic a lit­tle tired and lack­ing in orig­i­nal­i­ty. These influ­ences are clear in the mono­chro­mat­ic liv­ing spaces and kitschy din­er set­ting, with scenes clin­i­cal­ly organ­ised to house the scat­ter­ings of dead­pan dialogue.

Still, the visu­al famil­iar­i­ty allows for moments of charm and effec­tive­ly allows us access to Jane’s world of quirks and off-kil­ter inter­ac­tions. Her modes of expres­sion and her under­stand­ing of envi­ron­ment make more sense than her family’s self-decep­tive and world-weary approach. Roberts steers clear of wal­low­ing in pity; Jane’s pure heart and insis­tence on kind­ness become the ground­ing morals of the film.

A cute­ly deliv­ered finale brings the film to a sat­is­fy­ing close, but stick­ing this land­ing feels a lit­tle unmer­it­ed after a lack­lus­tre build-up. Where the film works best is in its por­tray­al of Jane reck­on­ing with her life as a young woman and learn­ing to let go of past anguish. Roberts’ han­dling of men­tal health is sen­si­tive but also mat­ter-of-fact – his film locates an lev­el of intel­li­gence that ele­vates the material.