Dragonfly
Andrea Riseborough and Brenda Blethyn are at the top of their form in Paul Andrew Williams’ chilling, well-judged story of an unusual friendship.
Dixie, Andrea Riseborough and Brenda Blethyn
Image courtesy of Conic.
Dragonfly contains two outstanding performances and in addition to that it has the merit of probably being the best film that Paul Andrew Williams has given us since he made his first feature in 2006. That was London to Brighton and its impact was huge. It established Williams as a writer/director with a real feel for tough, gritty material. Since then, aside from his work for television, he has given us four feature films. 2012’s Song for Marion starring Vanessa Redgrave and the late Terence Stamp has come to be seen as the odd one out since it was an offering that was part weepie and part feel-good movie. His other films echoed in various ways the toughness of London to Brighton and, whatever their virtues, contributed to the notion that strong violence regularly featured in his work. Indeed, it was talk of the bloody death scenes in his 2021 film Bull that discouraged me from seeking it out. I mention these expectations because they may have contributed to what I regard as very misleading comments about this new work of his. Several people have suggested that what plays in a very different register for most of its length turns into a horror film in its last twenty minutes or so. It is indeed true that the story takes a chilling turn and a violent one at that, but to suggest that it puts Dragonfly however belatedly into the horror category is totally wide of the mark.
The most accurate way to describe Dragonfly is as a study of the friendship that develops between two lonely souls who happen to live in neighbouring bungalows on a modest housing estate somewhere in West Yorkshire. These two women actually have very little in common apart from the fact that both have solitary lives. One of them, Elsie (Brenda Blethyn), has lived in the same place for fifty years, but she is now in her eighties and has been a widow for thirteen years. Her state is such that carers come in to visit her three times a week but, despite having phone calls, she hardly ever gets an actual visit from her son John (Jason Watkins) who lives with his own family up north. Elsie’s neighbour is, in contrast, only thirty-five but Colleen (Andrea Riseborough) has only one companion, her dog Saber, a cross breed who can look fierce but on whom she dotes.
The first half of Dragonfly shows most persuasively how Colleen starts to make contact with her neighbour, offers to do the shopping that Elsie cannot do herself, becomes critical of the overworked carers who don't always help for their allotted hour and eventually takes over their role in looking after Elsie. She is not paid for doing this but it would seem that a bond is forming between these two women which in its way can be seen as leading to a real friendship. At the same time the film is consciously aware that viewers will have heard stories of so-called friends, whether neighbours or not, who make themselves indispensable but are actually in one way or another taking advantage. Once or twice we see Colleen checking out items in Elsie's bedroom and by this time we know that Colleen, who in fact has debts of her own, has free use of Elsie's card when shopping for her. Furthermore, while Elsie is typical of many a widow with little or no family support, one only needs to look at Colleen's face to be aware that she is something of an oddity. Quite late on we will learn something of her earlier life that could be said to account for this, but we never know whether or not she has ever had a close relationship with anyone. All of which means that the film asks us not to take anything for granted regarding this seeming friendship.
We do at times see Elsie's carers and John eventually does visit his mother, but even so Dragonfly comes close to being a two-hander with the dog (the casting of the animal is admirably judged) being the most significant subsidiary presence. The direction by Paul Andrew Williams is unobtrusive but well-judged. However, in so far as the film deals in the daily routines of life for so long one could say that the two actresses carry it. Both are superb (and in his way Jason Watkins making little more than a cameo appearance is spot on). Blethyn and Riseborough play together superbly with Blethyn capturing the everyday normality of Elsie and Riseborough getting right into the depths of Colleen as a woman affected by life in ways which we may never fully understand but who could not be more real to us (Riseborough has probably done nothing better).
To know in advance that the situation will grow into one in which violence will be perpetrated in some shape or form is no drawback given that the audience is regularly encouraged to speculate on how genuine the apparent friendship of the two central characters is as far as Colleen is concerned. But the suggestion that Dragonfly will become a horror movie – a possibility that might discourage some potential views from seeing the film - is altogether wrong. These days horror movies are rarely restrained in showing close-ups of flesh being mutilated but the gore that is seen here, while it may shock some, is not played up in that way. Nevertheless, there has even been a suggestion that horror takes over to the extent that it betrays what had until then seemed to be a sympathetic portrait of two lonely people. That view totally fails to appreciate the emotional arc of the work (I can't say too much without disclosing how the story ends but in that respect Dragonfly echoes Michael Powell's masterpiece Peeping Tom albeit that his film was a thriller that was indeed closer to the horror genre). Furthermore, the absolutely apt and sad closing shot in Dragonfly is evidence in itself that this film has not suddenly changed its character.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Andrea Riseborough, Brenda Blethyn, Jason Watkins, Rochenda Sandall, Lolly Jones, Elliot Benn, David Nellist, Sandra Huggett, Anne Eves, Gemma Peace, Katherine Kingsley, Paul Andrew Williams and Dixie as Saber.
Dir Paul Andrew Williams, Pro Marie-Elena Dyche and Dominic Tighe, Screenplay Paul Andrew Williams, Ph Vanessa Whyte, Pro Des Kay Brown, Ed Nina Annan, Music Raffertie, Costumes Helen Bolter.
Desmar/Giant Productions/Merkaki Films/Screen Yorkshire-Conic.
98 mins. UK. 2025. UK Rel: 7 November 2025. Cert. 15.
