DEPARTURES has an unabashed fondness for its influences, yet its own flashes of filmmaking personality add freshness to the echoes of Danny Boyle’s TRAINSPOTTING and Andrew Haigh’s work. Even if the film begins a little too energetically to let its emotional moments land, it settles into an engaging dynamic, driven by the chemistry between David Tag and Lloyd Eyre-Morgan (who also co-directs with Neil Ely and wrote the screenplay).
The film jumps back in time to look over the relationship between Benji (Eyre-Morgan) and Jake (Tag), which has ended. We see an emotional and agitated discussion in Jake’s gaudy car signalling its end, before experiencing Benji’s devastated reaction, and revisiting the relationship in flashbacks.
The primary focus is how their relationship develops over many weekends in Amsterdam, where Benji is flown out by Jake, who is not open back home with his same-sex attractions. He keeps his liaisons with Benji strictly compartmentalised in the Dutch capital. There is a toxic edge to the relationship which grows more emotionally destructive, and the roots of both men’s personalities are also examined in childhood backstories.
“…the naturalistic dialogue and relaxed performance of Eyre-Morgan are always engaging, and set a foundation for our investment in the characters.”
Despite the heavy emotional subject, DEPARTURES maintains a peppy demeanour for the most part. The tortured path to a strange form of acceptance from Benji’s mother (Lorraine Stanley) is played for laughs in the film’s opening movements, as is the establishment of the other pre-Jake figures in his life. Musical embellishment is frequent, as well as on-screen drawings of hearts, birds and handwritten text, like the scribblings in a diary. The visual style and script are perhaps overly energetic in these opening stretches, given the more emotionally gnarly material to follow. However, the naturalistic dialogue and relaxed performance of Eyre-Morgan are always engaging, and set a foundation for our investment in the characters.
The narrative finds its feet as the shine on the relationship starts to scuff off. Eyre-Morgan structures this build well in the script, as the film opens with the verbally violent and arrogant fallout with which we know this path ends. That knowledge means the red flags dotting the initial stages – Jake’s indignant insistence he “isn’t gay”, and occasionally disdainful reactions to affection – register as the foreshadowing they are.
TRAINSPOTTING echoes through the film in the delivery of Benji’s voiceovers, which guide the action with a wry humour, but recede into the background when the story can do the talking itself. That feeling of addiction and pull is keenly felt, but rather than a substance issue, Benji experiences it towards Jake. Boyle’s film is practically invited to cast a long shadow, and the self-reflective and almost cheeky monologues are particularly rapid-fire in the opening act. Their presence risks distorting homage and influence into desperate imitation before the story finds its own rhythm.
“[DEPARTURES identifies] a unique stride, and the brash edge separates it from queer romances like WEEKEND, or the more poetic ALL OF US STRANGERS, without sacrificing emotional complexity.”
Fortunately, it does identify a unique stride, and the brash edge separates it from queer romances like WEEKEND, or the more poetic ALL OF US STRANGERS, without sacrificing emotional complexity. The portrayal of Jake avoids over-simplifying the character, as not only is the relationship seen via a queer lens (versus the many heteronormative assessments of toxic masculinity in recent cinema) but it also provides some roots for his behaviour without excusing it. Jake’s abusive and closed-off attitude also impacts him, and his admission of sadness is a tragic and impactful moment because of the space the film affords to it.
The proximity of the film’s debut to that of Harry Lighton’s PILLION will invite comparison, as the latter made mainstream impact with aspects that overlap thematically: gay male desire twisting through a relationship with a power imbalance. However, the journey to casting aside toxic power dynamics in favour of discovery and self-acceptance is different: Benji and Jake are both undermined by Jake’s self-hatred, rather than a truly mutual desire for that power imbalance from which Benji must emerge.
Even if DEPARTURES leans heavily on its influences before it establishes what it wants to say, there are enough novel angles and flourishes that its bolshy Mancunian voice is clearly heard and worth listening to.