Trauma (2004)

Ben (Colin Firth) emerges from a two-week long coma to discover that his wife Elisa (Naomie Harris) is dead from the car accident. He must grieve alone, however, for his awakening coincides with the news that the body of popular singer Lauren Parris has been dredged out the water.

Ben attempts to rebuild his life, moving into a new apartment. He makes the acquaintance of the landlady, Charlotte (Mena Suvari) who, learning of his situation, takes him to visit a medium (Brenda Fricker). Disturbingly she tells Ben that Elisa is still alive.

Meanwhile the police, in the form of Inspector Jackson (Kenneth Cranham) are taking an interest in Ben as a potential suspect in Lauren's murder…

The plusses first:

Trauma looks good, with moody production design and lighting for the London exteriors – thought it would be nice to see a different part of the UK used, especially since the East End locations only serve to recall the not dissimilar though superior Spider – and Isle of Man Studio interiors. (The odd combination explicable through being the latest in a long line of productions made with Manx funding.)

Likewise Marc Evans's helming is confident and stylish, with the director using a similar range of devices as his previous excursion into similar territory, My Little Eye – surveillance cameras, glitch edits, defamiliarised compositions etc. – to create a disorienting, edgy mood, over which are laid effective if predictable soundscapes of nails across blackboard screeches and pizzicato strings.

Nor can Colin Firth's haunted performance be faulted, though Mena Suvari feels somewhat misplaced amidst the likes of Brenda Fricker and Kenneth Cranham – both reliable as ever – and comes across as a too obvious concession to the US marketplace.

But, for all these positives, there's one big, fatal, flaw.

Trauma simply fails to engage the viewer's interest. Our position, ironically, is somewhat akin to that of Lauren Parris's mourning fans: We simply don't care about Benjamin's plight. Unfortunately we're also stuck with it for 90 odd minutes, creating an experience reminiscent of that drunk in the pub or crazy on the bus who simply will not shut up and go away.

Nor does the murder subplot really convince. How easy would it be to abduct a major celebrity, who would surely have a bodyguard? Would she really go down the shops herself? And would everyone really care? Here there's a brief but telling reference to Diana, where, as we all surely know, there was always that element of a cycle of silence whereby no one in the mass media was willing or able to utter what many were undoubtedly thinking: Yeah, yeah, get over it.

Then there's also the difficulties caused – admittedly understandable in practical production terms – of having a fictional figure whereby the environmental wallpaper aspect – the playing of her music in the background, the billboards and media images etc – just don't have the required recognition value despite (or maybe because of) the film-makers conscious use of cover versions of well-known songs.

Those who have seen My Little Eye will recognise both symptoms: Evans is a good director, but has problems with getting plausible characters and situations to work with.

Ultimately, then, one is left with a strong sense of style over substance and of a production where the film-makers were unwilling to get down and dirty and make an honest to goodness no nonsense genre film; of preferring the veneer of respectability granted by the psychological thriller label over the horror one and of being more concerned with the broadsheet reviews than the multiplex masses.