Chronic-2015
Director Michel Franco
Starring Tim Roth, Robin Bartlett
Scott’s Review #682
Reviewed September 18, 2017
Grade: A-
Chronic (2015) is a brave film, a character study, that offers an in-depth look at the life of a male nurse. He has rich relationships with his patients.
What the film also does quite soundly is reflect on not just the obvious physical needs of the patients, but the deep effects that the main character’s dying patients have on himself as well.
The film is quite bleak with a quiet element and very long scenes containing little dialogue but a treasure in bold storytelling and brazen reflection.
The film is a subdued work requiring attention and focus.
Yes, some would deem Chronic to be slow, and most would describe it as “a downer”, but dismissing the film is a mistake as it offers rich writing and an in-depth look at a vocation and lifestyle misunderstood or confusing to most people.
Tim Roth, famous for his bad boy roles, especially in Quentin Tarantino films, does an about-face, delivering a superb, subdued performance as David Wilson, a lonely and depressed nurse in the Los Angeles area.
He is a quiet, kindly man whose internal pain registers on his face as he dutifully treats his mostly close-to-death patients, sometimes attending their funerals after they have expired.
Initially, we meet David as he treats a sickly young woman. Once beautiful, she is now haggard and I cringed when the woman’s nude, skeleton-like body, is on display as David washes her with a washcloth.
The filmmakers do not gloss over his tender attention to her private areas, shot gracefully and not done garishly. Still, the long scene is frightening in its realism.
When the woman succumbs to AIDS, David reluctantly becomes involved in a celebratory drink with a newly engaged young couple after he goes to a bar to unwind.
When he pretends the deceased woman is his wife, he receives sympathy, but the couple quickly becomes aloof when he reveals what she died of.
Does he do this purposely to push the couple away? Throughout the film, we realize that David thrives on being with his patients, and can do no other work.
In contrast, he has difficulty with relations with “normal” people.
Perplexities abound in this film, which makes the viewer think and ponder throughout, and after the story ends.
For example, David searches through a young girl’s Facebook account looking at her photos- he later finds the girl, revealed to be studying medicine, and they happily reunite.
Is she his daughter or the daughter of a deceased patient?
Later, David is sued by an affluent family and subsequently fired, after he watches porn with an elderly man to lift his spirits. There is a glimmer of uncertainty where we are not sure what David’s sexual orientation is.
In the most heartbreaking sequence of all, David begins caring for a middle-aged woman with progressive cancer. Martha (Robin Bartlett) is strong-willed and no-nonsense and makes the painful decision not to continue with chemotherapy after suffering chronic nausea and later soiling herself.
It is apparent that her family only visits her out of obligation as she lies to them that her cancer is gone and she is in the clear. She then pleads with David to end her life with dignity using a heavy dose of morphine- the sequence is heartbreaking.
The final scene will blow one away and I did not see this conclusion coming. The event left me questioning the entire film, wondering how all the pieces fit together.
Surely, being overlooked for an Oscar nomination, Tim Roth proves he is a layered, complex, full-fledged actor, in a painful, yet necessary story called Chronic (2015).
Independent Spirit Award Nominations: Best Feature, Best Male Lead-Tim Roth