The second feature directed by actor / writer Craig Roberts, after 2015’s well-received Just Jim, Eternal Beauty represents a reunion between him and actress Sally Hawkins, who appeared as his mother in the 2010’s indie hit Submarine, and who is also in the probably unique position of having made films with both Mike Leigh and Godzilla.

Shot in South Wales but set in an unspecified location, although the largely London accents are a strong indicator, the settings are a mix of dull tower blocks and institutional interiors, and streets in which the weather seems to be set permanently between overcast and drizzling, which matches the outlook of Jane, a woman in her forties with a history of mental illness and spells in mental health facilities, her life finally being sent spiralling down after being left at the altar by her intended husband, heard only as a voice, one of her auditory hallucinations, and although she is living semi-independently, she is a frequent visitor to her family home, with her parents Dennis (Robert Pugh - TV’s Game Of Thrones / Vanity Fair) and Vivian (the ever-excellent Penelope Wilton - The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel / TV’s Downton Abbey), and her two sisters, Alice (Alice Lowe - Sightseers / Prevenge) and Nicola (Billie Piper - TV’s Doctor Who / I Hate Suzie), the latter working the benefits system by feigning the symptoms of her sister’s genuine affliction.

A glimmer of hope seems to come when she meets an old friend, Mike (David Thewlis (I’m Thinking Of Ending Things / the Harry Potter series), in the waiting room of her therapist, beginning a relationship with the failed musician, despite his hipster’s pork-pie hat, but of course, like a surprising number of the characters Thewlis plays, he isn’t to be trusted.

Roberts says his script is based on an aunt who also suffered schizophrenia, but this isn’t a particularly serious examination of mental illness, also Roberts also says he took advice from an accredited expert in the field and adjusted his script accordingly, and Roberts has obviously tried hard to have the misc-en-scene try to reflect his main character’s mental situation with colour, lighting, angles and depth of field, shooting on 35mm celluloid, with certain shots being cribbed from other films, one in a corridor very notably from Polanski’s Repulsion (1965), but he is also making a dark comedy, the family, with perhaps one exception, being mostly unlikeable, with the implication that her family situation, as well as being dumped at the alter, Miss Haversham-style, have all contributed to how Jane finds herself now, as a painful Christmas scene, with the exchange of presents, being both a perfect example of absolute cringe comedy and a demonstration of both Jane’s paranoias and quiet manipulative calculation.

Roberts certainly has a high calibre cast, topped up by the terrific Morfydd Clark (Saint Maud / The Personal History Of David Copperfield) and while the film’s release, like so many others, was delayed by the coronavirus lockdown, the film was caught by some critics on it’s festival play and while not attracting the almost universal approval which welcomed Just Jim it still drew some good notices, The Hollywood Reporter believing ‘To Roberts’ credit, his script manages to build up a narrative that has a shape and heft to it and doesn’t just feel like pages of a psych manual. Eternal Beauty is almost as much a story about a dysfunctional unhappy family as it is about one of the few likeable members in that family, and the strong ensemble keeps the comedy buoyant throughout’. UK Film Review thought ‘Craig Roberts reframes the narrative surrounding mental illness by choosing not to shy away from showing both the cruelty in June’s illness and the joy she gets from her life. This complex portrayal makes Eternal Beauty one to watch’, although SF Weekly complained ‘Roberts is overly reliant on off-kilter angles and saturated light filters that place Jane in a cartoon madhouse. He goes for expressionism (“Look what my camera can do!”) over realism. This approach is meant to signal his vision as an auteur, but fails to hold Hawkins and her determined work up as the brightly lit, demented centerpiece’.

Following his 2015 directorial debut Just Jim, Submarine star Craig Roberts’ sophomore feature is a true high-wire act, depicting the unstable perceptions of a fragile persona with delirious colour and design across ever-shifting time frames. Sally Hawkins’ fearless performance again confirms her as one of Britain’s best, and an ace supporting cast – Alice Lowe, Billie Piper, Penelope Wilton – prove equally committed to Roberts’ singular, humane vision.