Phoenix, Ramsay improvise a blistering and brutal thriller

NEW YORK – The fractured thriller “You Were Never Really Here,” starring Joaquin Phoenix, is Scottish filmmaker’s Lynne Ramsay’s fourth and most frenetic film.

In theatres Friday, the movie is only Ramsay’s second in 15 years. She extensively prepared to write and direct “The Lovely Bones” before being dropped for Peter Jackson. And she walked away from the Western “Jane Got a Gun,” starring Natalie Portman, just as production was starting in a dispute over creative control with producers that ultimately led to lawsuits.

But in “You Were Never Really Here,” one of cinema’s most powerfully psychological filmmakers returns with a film that won best screenplay and best actor at last year’s Cannes Film Festival.

The 48-year-old says making films is exhausting, but “You Were Never Really Here” made her feel “like a kid again.”