‘Herself ’ is hard to watch; this makes it meaningful
The greatest heroes in movies aren’t the ones who wear capes or toss tanks like Tinkertoys or leap tall buildings.
No, the best are the everyday people who simply slog through their lives one day at a time, trodding a treadmill of tedium recognizable as human activity, completing the day-to-day effort of simply getting by. Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn’t. But you root for them either way.
“Herself ” is one of the best examples of this — and it boasts an almost superhuman performance from Clare Dunne, who co-wrote the film. It’s a story about trying to escape domestic violence and the associated fallout of getting away, at times playing almost like a fable. As such, it’s not always easy to watch. But it is ultimately up
lifting, with director Phyllida Lloyd (“Mamma Mia!,” “The Iron Lady”) successfully splitting the difference be
tween inspirational storytelling mawkish sentimentality.
Dunne helps a lot in that regard.
Dunne’s powerful performance makes the film more honest
and
‘Herself’ captures the agony and fallout of domestic abuse
She plays Sandra, the mother of two young daughters in Ireland. She works in a pub for a miserable toad of a boss and cleans for Peggy (Harriet Walter), a cantankerous doctor recovering from a broken hip suffered in a field hospital in Africa. Peggy was friends with Sandra’s late mother — who was also Peggy’s cleaner.
Sandra is married to Gary (Ian Lloyd Anderson). The first time we see him he punches Sandra in the face, yanks her hair and stomps on her hand. It’s awful, and we will see it replayed many times in Sandra’s memory as she tries to work through the trauma and its effects, on her and her daughters.
She bolts, having prepared an escape plan. She and the girls land in a hotel that serves as public housing — one in which Sandra and her children are not permitted to enter through the front, having to slink around back and walk up the stairs (the elevator is also forbidden, lest they be seen by paying customers.)
It’s humiliating for Sandra, who has done nothing wrong — far from it. But that’s not the worst of it. Sandra recognizes it as a trap, a quagmire from which escape is impossible, thanks to a system rigged against her. She has to take the kids to Gary for occasional court-ordered visits; he’s always going on about how he’s changed and he’s a better man and tries to be convincing up until the inevitable point that he can no longer be because he’s not a better man at all.
Sandra soldiers on. One night she happens upon a YouTube video about building your own small house.
Why not? She doesn’t know the first thing about construction, but she sees no other way out of her situation.
This is where things take a turn for what could be the maudlin. Peggy offers a plot of land in her backyard. When a hardware store employee pours on the condescension like so much concrete, a surly contractor named Aido (Conleth
Hill) bails Sandra out. He reluctantly agrees to lead a ragtag weekend construction crew. Friends pitch in; the feel-good vibes abound.
But Gary remains a dark cloud, an anchor not just on Sandra’s happiness but her ability to move forward with her life. This culminates in a courtroom scene that is somewhat cliched but still winning, thanks to Dunne’s performance. By this time we’re rooting for her so completely it doesn’t matter if we have a pretty good idea where things are headed.
So when Sandra says to the judge, “Ask better questions” — not just that she says it but the way she says it, insistent but almost under her breath, the perfect delivery for someone who has struggled for so long to be heard in a meaningful way — it’s fantastic.
Dunne performance is quietly assured; Sandra’s strength may waver, but it never falters. You root for her. You root for the movie, something that Lloyd purposely makes difficult to do at times. That’s going to throw some people, no doubt. But she resists easy resolution, making “Herself ” a satisfying experience.