Myrid Carten’s uncle Danny doesn’t always sound coherent when she stumbles in on him in her former childhood home in “A Want in Her,” but from the camera she’s got rolling he suggests she go to Channel Four for funding a full feature when he knows the family’s got a story to tell. Danny isn’t in good shape when Carten finds him curled up in sheets in the corner of the caravan she once shared with her mother that’s fallen into disrepair, alongside the house that had been in the larger family for years and ultimately bestowed to her uncle Kevin, who isn’t about to let his brother back in no matter how bad he looks. After the death of the family’s matriarch upon taking a fall from the stairs, things unraveled fast for the clan as solace was sought in drugs and alcohol by some of her children and the consequences have been passed down to Carten, who is left to shoulder the responsibility of taking care of those who should’ve been taking care of her and ends up surely easing the burden so many others face in her position as an unflinching look at the powerful grip of addiction and the need for self-protection to be able to offer safety to anyone else.
“A Want in Her” actually starts out with Carten seeing her mother Nuala sleeping on a park bench, recognizable to her only from the high heels she’s wearing and the bottle in her hand. The scene isn’t related with footage from the incident, but rather a phone call to police when Carten has no idea how to approach her mother, who has been in and out of rehab centers and homeless for long periods of time, and it’s an uncertainty that extends to putting any of this on camera when the filmmaker is as concerned with exploitation as her mother’s general well-being once Nuala is placed in the custody of Kevin, who has long reluctantly been the one to take her in when he knows he’s a last resort and yet endures the abuse of an inveterate alcoholic with terrible withdrawals away from drinking. Still, Carten exudes remarkable confidence in her aims as a filmmaker and her skills, compelled to document the experience when it can be proof later of how self-destructive Nuala has become and artfully expressing her return to a haunted house, often inspiring footage shot from the ceilings as if from the perspective of ghosts that have refused to leave.
The film is extraordinarily attuned to supernatural frequencies, particularly the kind that guide conversations where an emotional logic supersedes what makes otherwise makes no sense. As Carten engages with her mother and her uncle in frustrating circular discussions about past trauma and what’s to blame, a feeling she’s breaking a cycle in her own growing recognition of what her proper role is in the situation is matched by a formal daring that places “A Want in Her” outside of the lazy tearjerker with pat conclusions it could easily be, reminding a bit of Clio Barnard’s creation of a liminal space in “The Arbor” as voices are occasionally removed from bodies they emanate from and time and space are confused, as well as fact and fiction to a degree when old videos start entering the mix. (For instance, an old home video of Carten dramatically acting out a scene as a child transmits what she must’ve felt at the time about her mother when she plays a volatile one herself.) Broken up brilliantly in its chronology and structure to reflect a continually shattering experience, the film never suggests the pieces will ever easily fit together again, but piled up they seem to lay the groundwork for Carten and her various family members to reach some understanding of one another that will allow all of them to move forward.
Yet it’s appropriate “A Want in Her” is ultimately quite staggering when it evokes the paralyzing experience of having a loved one that’s an addict. Carten is constantly weighing her own needs with a life and career in London and a boyfriend to think about and what if anything she owes to Kevin, who has to put up with his sister solely due to geographical proximity, and to Nuala, who has disappointed her so many times. While it would be compelling alone to see her struggle with putting herself first for once, the fact that there is a finished film at all becomes a triumph when it is a product of the same push and pull between professional and personal considerations, only possible with the bracing honesty that becomes a necessity in conversations with her family. A final stationary shot of great clarity inspires for many reasons, but mostly when it seems to reflect a most solid foundation for Carten’s family to build anew and only just the start for a seriously talented new filmmaker.
“A Want in Her” does not yet have U.S. distribution.