Juniper
Starring Charlotte Rampling, George Ferrier, Martin Csokas, Edith Poor
Written & Directed by Matthew Saville
Rating: *** ½
You really can’t put a good woman down; not one as dazzling as Charlotte Rampling. This British actress has regaled us with a wide variety of performances for decades: her most recent triumph being the two knock-out films Benedetta and Dune.
Juniper , a New Zealand production puts Rampling right at the centre of a plot that offers the supreme comfort of the familiar and yet succeeds in shaking us to the core by its gentle yet persuasive comment on humanism.
Rampling plays Ruth a fading matriarch now confined to a wheelchair in her final days , Ruth descends on her estranged son Robert(Marton Csokas) and her grandson Sam(George Ferrier). Very conveniently , the plot packs off the father(who resents his mother for not having told him who his father is, a detail she cannot supply since she doesn’t know who the father of her son is) and leaves the coast clear for a truly moving grandmother-grandson story with scenes between the two actors that are stirring and moving.
Speaking of leaving the coast clear, the New Zealand hinterland with its mountains and oceans is captured in all their majestic glory but never at the expense of the characters. There are only four main characters in the story(not counting a party that granny Ruth hosts so that grandson Sam can lose his virginity) and two of the characters are missing for long stretches, leaving Rampling and her young co-star Ferrier to grapple with the demons that have hovered in their lives for years.
There are no major confrontation scenes. There is a captivating quietude clamping the characters in a cordon of ties that time or distance cannot take away. The best thing about Juniper can also be considered its biggest weakness: it doesn’t offer us any new insights into the domestic drama. And that’s precisely why we love what we see in this cosily searing drama of dying with a flourish and a laugh.
The filmis fetchingly shot and frugally edited. There is no room here for pleasantries.For me the stand-out interlude between Ruth and Sam is when she is picked out of her wheelchair by her grandson for a dance. As she clings tightly to the young boy her entire being can be seen absorbing the smell and feel of youth.
It is a highly erotic moment, but also very spiritual in its tragic suggestions of the twilight phase in the human life specially when the flesh is weak but the spirit is high, and why not? Since Ruth sips on gin and tonic all day long.
By the time the film ends the bonding between Ruth and Sam is so strong I could feel the weight of the impending tragedy on Sam’s shoulder.The weight gets heavier as we grow older.
