SHATTERED MIND (SURGE)

Every now and again a performance comes along that is so edgy it just knocks you off your seat.

Over the years, Brando, Pacino, Binoche, Hanks, Washington, Streep, Day Lewis, de Niro, McDormand, Hoffman, Depardieu, Taylor, Nicholson and Hopkins have all done that.

So too have Theron, Keitel, Oldman, Bette Davis, Hackman, Bale, Huppert, Di Caprio, Burton, Bening, Kirk and Michael Douglas, Hunter, Penn, Duvall, Ronan, Lemmon, Carlyle, Adams, Cagney, Patel, Close, Newman and Welles.

If there is any justice, 2021 will be the year when we talk about Ben Whishaw and his phenomenal performance in Aneil Karia's British indie flick 'Surge'.

Whishaw plays Joseph, a security guard at Stansted Airport who is teetering on the edge of a massive breakdown.

From the very first image onscreen, a long shot by cinematographer Stuart Bentley of Joseph walking through the airport, we can tell all isn't well.

Joseph holds his hands occasionally to his head and nervously looks around him as he walks through the concourse.

At the airport security gate, he struggles to keep his cool as an elderly man with barely a word of English struggles to follow his instructions.

However that soon dissolved into shame during a more detailed search as the man behaves like he is being detained by the secret police.

For his birthday, Joseph brings in a carrot cake to work which his colleagues devour.

However they haven't a clue whose birthday it is.

Joseph bites hard into his fork during this sequence.

However we soon see he has a soft spot for Jasmine Jobson's Lily, who during lunch break tells her colleagues about a TV she has bought which she hopes to connect her daughter's laptop to.

Later, he visits his elderly parents, Ellie Haddington's Joyce and Ian Gelder's Alan which turns out to be a very stressful experience.

While picking up Joseph from the train station, Alan is harangued by a man who he accidentally bumps his car into and then almost hits another car as he. flees the scene.

Alan, who is a gruff character, also shuns Joseph's offer of help as he installs a washing machine, while Joyce gets het up over a birthday cake she has prepared for her son when she realises he has already had one at work.

She also gets upset when he spoils the illusion of surprise by wandering into the kitchen as she lights the candles.

The sequence ends with Joseph again biting hard, this time into a glass which shatters and badly cuts his lip.

Amid the chaos, he bolts out of the house.

As Karia's film unfolds, Joseph inevitably hurtles towards meltdown.

He loses it while working in Stansted after Lily calls in sick.

In a state of agitation, he turns up at her flat insisting he will help her connect her daughter's laptop to her TV and ventures back onto the high street to buy her the right connection lead.

However when his debit card fails in the electrical store and is then swallowed up by an ATM in a neighbouring supermarket, he ends up going into bank and holding it up by pretending he has a gun and handing a note over to the cashier.

Whishaw, along with Karia and his fellow screenwriters  Rupert Jones and Rita Kainejais chronicle Joseph's spectacular unraveling in a way that is very reminiscent of Michael Douglas' D Fens meltdown in Joel Schumacher's 'Falling Down'.

Joseph's mental deterioration leads him into making questionable impulsive decisions and inevitably that brings him into a head on collision with the law.

The rapid decline in Joseph's mental health is brilliantly conveyed by Whishaw who moves from initially being quite introverted to an individual who becomes increasingly intoxicated by the crimes he commits and more brazen.

It is a performance of incredible physicality that almost seems quite feral.

Every twitch, every inappropriate laugh or facial gesture measures over the 24 hour period depicted onscreen how broken Whishaw's character has become.

Understandably, Whishaw's performance dwarfs everyone else in the cast but they certainly do their bit for the film 

Jobson, Haddington and Gelder are excellent fodder for Whishaw's disturbed man, while Perry Fitzpatrick and Dan Renton Skinner also turn in memorable performances as men who get into confrontations with Joseph.

There's also an extraordinary sequence where Joseph encounters at airport security a passenger who is as disturbed as he is.

Whishaw's performance, however, isn't the only ace in Karia's film.

The director shows he has a firm grip on the psychology of images and sound and with the help of Bentley, film editor Amanda James and sound designer Paul Davies, stylishly conveys Joseph's torment.

Bentley, in particular moves the camera at pace with a great sense of urgency around Whishaw as he trudges through London

The guerrilla quality of the filmmaking is thrilling, as real life passersby react to Whishaw's disturbed performance, often stepping around him or nervously glancing at him.

Jerky camera movements heighten the intensity of what is unfolding onscreen in a manner which is reminiscent of the Safdie brothers' movies 'Good Time' and 'Uncut Gems'.

Davies also does a terrific job with the sound, using the noise of the big city to ratchet up the pressure on Joseph and contribute to his destruction, amplifying the sounds of the airport, the train station, the tube or the bustling city streets.

Ultimately though, 'Surge' is Whishaw's triumph.

After 105 tense minutes, you will find yourself gasping for air but you will also find yourself hoping his performance commands the respect it clearly deserves.

('Surge' was released in UK and Irish cinemas and digital platforms on May 27, 2021)

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