Transitions are difficult things. Unrelated is delicate in its treatment of transitions, of people who are caught between the pull of one life and another. Anna, played with subtlety by Kathryn Worth, is drifting away from her partner Alex and decides to spend time with her friends for a few days in Tuscany. They're fairly run-of-the-mill bourgeois, absorbed in the petty minutiae of their own privileged lives, dining and laughing and discussing little of consequence. What Hogg portrays so masterfully is that these people are like any other group with their codes, habits, shibboleths. Anna is drawn to the 'Youngs', the children of her friends, and as the film goes on she is increasingly drawn into their parallel holiday.
It's shot in a very understated manner, at times almost feeling like a video shot on holiday, and the film in general takes an unobtrusive approach to its actors. The budget is low, the costumes home-sourced, but nevertheless a sense of intimacy is created and a real investment in Anna's life and situation. Her fascination and flirtation with Oakley, played with the sort of arrogance that Tom Hiddleston would dine out on for years after, is only the most visible expression of Anna's lack of belonging either with her own contemporaries or the younger, more hedonistic crowd. She is stuck in transition, unable to move on with her personal relationships or her sense of self.
It occasionally feels a little flat, and the peaks that come with the tension that has bubbled for much of the film finally boiling over don't segue gracefully into the lows enough to make it feel completely tonally even, but in the end it hardly matters. In taking a naturalistic approach to a mid-life crisis of sorts and presenting is as something unexceptional, Hogg is able to focus in on the anguish that comes with transitioning from one phase of life to another.
Review by DeletedBlockedParent2019-11-26T21:43:45Z
Transitions are difficult things. Unrelated is delicate in its treatment of transitions, of people who are caught between the pull of one life and another. Anna, played with subtlety by Kathryn Worth, is drifting away from her partner Alex and decides to spend time with her friends for a few days in Tuscany. They're fairly run-of-the-mill bourgeois, absorbed in the petty minutiae of their own privileged lives, dining and laughing and discussing little of consequence. What Hogg portrays so masterfully is that these people are like any other group with their codes, habits, shibboleths. Anna is drawn to the 'Youngs', the children of her friends, and as the film goes on she is increasingly drawn into their parallel holiday.
It's shot in a very understated manner, at times almost feeling like a video shot on holiday, and the film in general takes an unobtrusive approach to its actors. The budget is low, the costumes home-sourced, but nevertheless a sense of intimacy is created and a real investment in Anna's life and situation. Her fascination and flirtation with Oakley, played with the sort of arrogance that Tom Hiddleston would dine out on for years after, is only the most visible expression of Anna's lack of belonging either with her own contemporaries or the younger, more hedonistic crowd. She is stuck in transition, unable to move on with her personal relationships or her sense of self.
It occasionally feels a little flat, and the peaks that come with the tension that has bubbled for much of the film finally boiling over don't segue gracefully into the lows enough to make it feel completely tonally even, but in the end it hardly matters. In taking a naturalistic approach to a mid-life crisis of sorts and presenting is as something unexceptional, Hogg is able to focus in on the anguish that comes with transitioning from one phase of life to another.