‘Cordelia’ (2022) Review: A Haunting Portrait of a Woman Detached from Reality
Adrian Shergold’s Cordelia, a psychological thriller, is about a young woman who experienced a traumatic event and is unable to make sense of reality. It’s a flawed and claustrophobic drama that brings two interesting characters on screen, played by Antonia Campbell-Hughes and Johnny Flynn. The movie breaks down the disorienting and emotional outbursts of a woman detached from reality.
The movie begins with Cordelia (Campbell-Hughes), who wakes up from a bad nightmare of an unnamed, traumatic incident where she gives up a seat for a blind man. She lives with her twin sister Caroline (also played by Campbell-Hughes), her unofficial carer, who comforts her sister as she is deeply distressed. After Caroline and her boyfriend (Joel Fry) leave Cordelia alone at the large London flat, she strikes up a friendship with her neighbour and cellist Frank (Flynn), who lives in the same building above her. A charming but strange and unreliable man, Cordelia is attracted to him. However, she later finds out that he is not who he says he is and finds reasons to doubt him; but is he a creepy neighbour or is Cordelia imagining it all?
Cordelia explores the psyche of a young woman haunted by a traumatic event that changed the trajectory of her life. Even though she takes acting lessons and has a partial social life, she finds it difficult to make a stronger connection with people. Her proximity to the event makes it unbearably guilty for her, and the people around her are curious about it all. Her desire to move forward from the incident is constantly halted because of small triggers and hallucinatory moments, such as phone calls that continuously ring in the middle of the night. Her dominant sense and control of her world slowly deteriorates before her eyes but once Frank is introduced, the movie begins to progress — or so the audience is led to believe.
The film’s treatment of survivors’ guilt and trauma is bold. However, this is a psychological thriller. While the first half of the movie is tightly-paced and keeps the viewer engaged, the momentum breaks when it reaches the climax. Cordelia’s initial strong beginning with dream sequences and claustrophobic green walls becomes weaker. It slowly runs out of ideas, and even though the two central characters have a strong presence in the movie, the plot points don’t hold well together. Shergold’s direction seems to look and feel as though it was taken over by someone else, but it isn’t. The director does an excellent job building the setting and the atmosphere around the two characters and the flat and then, the movie begins to pivot to a strange and confusing tension between them. By the end of Cordelia, the audience is not entirely sure what to make of it, however, the twist and turns will most probably keep them interested.
As Cordelia’s world becomes more psychologically challenging, she begins to doubt Frank’s intentions and the audience doesn’t know whether everything is happening in her head or not. In one scene, Cordelia is suspicious after she finds candid pictures of her on Frank’s phone and in another instance, finds nude pictures of her in the bathtub taken through a hole in the floorboard. When she confronts Frank about it, he denies everything and seems oblivious to her claims. Later, when she returns to his flat, none of the pictures are present. This builds up the tension and is darker, leading to a conclusion that is unhinged. This shows how her paranoia and trauma unravel to the point where it increasingly becomes dangerous for her and everyone around her.
Cordelia begins as an interesting psychological thriller but loses its balance during the second half of the movie. It has all the ingredients for a good movie, with an interesting and dynamic performance by Campbell-Hughes and Flynn. It blends a real-life traumatic event with the personal and complex journey of grief, guilt, and loneliness — everything which is integral to Cordelia’s story.
