Silver Haze

Good intentions lead to mixed results in a committed drama of working-class life in Britain.

Although Sacha Polak is Dutch and has made films in Europe the work for which she is best known so far is her 2019 film Dirty God which was filmed in English and much of which takes place in the UK. That film was also notable for giving its lead role to Vicky Knight, a newcomer who gained nominations for her performance and whose personal history attracted sympathetic attention. She had been scarred at the age of eight when sleeping in property targeted by an arsonist and her role in Dirty God allowed for that by making her character, Jade, the victim of an acid attack. Now Polak and Knight are reunited in Silver Haze for which Polak also wrote the screenplay (on Dirty God she had a co-writer, here she takes the sole credit).

In Silver Haze Vicky Knight plays Franky, a nurse in her early twenties who lives in London’s East End. She encounters Florence (Esme Creed-Miles) due to the latter being a patient in the hospital following a suicide attempt. In her own way Franky is deeply troubled too since she remains obsessed by events that had occurred fifteen years earlier: her brother had died and Franky herself had been burnt severely in a fire that had destroyed the family home above a pub. Her sister Leah (played by Vicky Knight’s own sister Charlotte Knight) had luckily not been present and the two of them now live with their alcoholic mother, Donna (Carrie Bunyan). Franky is convinced that the arsonist who had never been conclusively identified was in fact Jane (Sarah-Jane Dent) who had subsequently set up home with their father who had then ended all contact with his family.

After Franky breaks up from her boyfriend Flynn (Alfie Deegan), she begins a more meaningful relationship with Florence and is introduced to the elderly woman who had brought her up, Alice (Angela Bruce), and to Florence’s autistic brother, Jack (Archie Brigden), who live in Southend-on-Sea. Welcomed into that household Franky increasingly establishes a real bond. It’s not always with Florence because the two lovers are often at odds but the connection is reliably settled in the case of the sympathetic Alice, a strong character who is facing up to cancer. But despite these developments Franky remains obsessed with learning the truth about the fire and even spies on her father and Jane.

Apparently, the story draws in some respects on the life of Vicky Knight herself and the dialogue in the film is partly based on improvisations. Certainly, one senses strongly the depth of the involvement felt by both Polak and Knight, but what the film lacks is any sense of adroit storytelling. The early scenes come across far too much as bits and pieces that don't always flow readily and initially we have a range of characters without being wholly clear as to their names and relationships. Later on, the film jerks back-and-forth between London and Southend and, while Polak’s commitment to portraying working class lives is manifest, she opts for more plot threads than are desirable. The central focus may be on Franky, her traumatised past and her partnership with Florence, but on top of both that and Alice's illness we also have Leah being involved with an abusive boyfriend (Brandon Bendell) and subsequently converting to Islam while Jack’s situation is in play too. Some of these threads rather fizzle out and others develop in ways not always convincing, one instance of that being the film’s unexpectedly positive ending following a narrative that has so often been downbeat.

Vicky Knight continues to thrive in collaboration with Polak as her director and in this well-intended but often bitty film Angela Bruce’s performance as Alice is a tower of strength. Nevertheless, Silver Haze as a whole is something of a mixed bag.

MANSEL STIMPSON

Cast: Vicky Knight, Esme Creed-Miles, Charlotte Knight, Angela Bruce, Archie Brigden, Carrie Bunyan, Alfie Deegan, Brandon Bendell, Youssef Ariyah, Sarah-Jane Dent, Nicola Bland, TerriAnn Cousins.

Dir Sacha Polak, Pro Marleen Slot and Michael Elliott, Screenplay Sacha Polak, Ph Tibor Dingelstad, Pro Des Elena Isolini, Ed Lot Rossmark, Music Ella Van Der Woude and Joris Oonk.

Emu Films/Viking Films/BBC Film-British Film Institute.
103 mins. The Netherlands/UK. 2023. UK Rel: 29 March 2024. Cert. 15.