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Ben
awakes from a week-long coma to discover he has been in an
accident in which his wife died of injuries sustained. As
his whole life begins to fall apart he attempts to get it
back on track by moving into an apartment building under repair.
We also see him visiting a psychiatrist. His attractive neighbour
strikes up a relationship, but Ben begins to see his wife
in public places and is convinced she is still
alive...
Trauma
is
a film which actively defies positive adjectives, except for
perhaps it's not overly long. Maybe that's being a little
too unkind, but there's definitely no spark.
"Gripping
thriller..." says The News of the World quote on the
packaging; er, no, not even close. My
Little Eye, also by director Marc Evans emerged
into a bright light of film company hype which described it
as original and a rewriting of the horror genre. It wasn't
original; even back then Big Brother and other reality
stuff wasn't new. As for rewriting the genre; it was basically
a slasher movie, it simply took longer to show it's colours.
Similarly
in Trauma, you get the impression Evans thought he
was making something special - a true psychological insight
into how we tick, particularly after being traumatised. Believe
me, although not derisory, it's certainly nothing special.
Nor is it insightful; this idea has been tackled a handful
of times before, and much more competently, by half-hour anthology
shows.
It
was obvious to me from early on that Ben was crazy, but just
in case any viewer is particularly slow the fact is constantly
waved in their face with ant-crawling dreams and a series
of other set pieces.
Colin Firth and Naomie Harris deserve better material than
this.
Ty
Power
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