First-time British feature writer-director Gerald McMorrow presents a mind-bending puzzle. The stories of four different people grow increasingly connected until in the end, you sit up and say, Oh, yeah, so that’s what it all meant.

There’s a hopeless romantic, who has been stood up at church for his wedding rehearsal; a suicidal young female art student blurring reality and representation; a father in search of his son; and a young non-believer if a Gothic dystopia set in a never-never metropolis called Meanwhile whose self-declared quest is to kill a man.

Undeniably, Franklyn looks great. It has the sleek, polished look of many current films set in other worlds. Without giving too much away, I can say I enjoyed the future-Gothic design of those parts of the film not set in contemporary London. Even the here-and-now photography is controlled and painterly. In fact, in the Making Of, Caravaggio is mentioned. 

Yet I found the whole thing a bit unsatisfying when it finally drew into coherence. Think of it as a middle-brow (and mid-budget) compromise between the unsettling, bleak minimalism of David Cronenberg Spider and the glossy, explosive but conventional anarchism of James McTeigue’s V for Vendetta.

Whilst I gladly welcome the message that in the anachronistic universe of Meanwhile, religion (regardless its creed) and faith are compulsory in order to expedite political control, I find it is wedged into the film as a simplistic statement and decoration; it could serve so much more and become a much meatier topic of a movie, which I guess is not Franklyn.

It definitely warrants seeing at least once, if not twice, to make things crystal clear. The disc features included Dolby TrueHD or 2.0 LPCM sound, a half-hour making of called “A Moment in the Meanwhile”, a few deleted scenes and a trailer. I think the trailer somewhat over-represents the amount of action in the movie. While no masterpiece, Franklyn should entertain the curious viewer.

Felix Staica