A challenging film to both review and market without spoiling, Paul Andrew Williams’ Dragonfly largely succeeds because it never quite telegraphs where it’s going until its third act. My thoughts are with the distributor that eventually picks up this film and has to decide what kind of trailer to cut for a work that largely spends its runtime as a straightforward social-realist story centered on the loneliness of neighbors. Those familiar with the output of writer-director Williams (including Bull and London to Brighton) will know better than to expect a traditional drama about working-class England in the vein of contemporary Mike Leigh and Ken Loach––even if Williams certainly can pull it off as well as those masters for his first half.
Of course, excellent casting helps, and Dragonfly works well because of the sympathetic performance of its leads, including the great Brenda Blethyn (perhaps best-known stateside for her Oscar-nominated role in Leigh’s masterpiece Secrets & Lies) playing Elsie, an elderly woman who refuses to move from her home of 50 years. Living semi-independently, she’s content to read her book and watch TV while getting by with the help of state-provided home-health aides who visit her modest council duplex. It shares a wall with neighbor Colleen (cinematic chameleon Andrea Riseborough), who is thin, pale, and appears older than her 35 years (Elsie guesses she’s 40 once they get to know each other).
Eventually, she agrees to help, first picking up a few groceries for Elsie and later becoming an uncompensated aide evoking the suspicions of Elsie’s son John (Jason Watkins), a middle-aged worker who is about to be placed on redundancy. Living some two hours away, John tries to make the case his mother would be happier residing with them, but she won’t have it. He soon grows worried regarding how trusting Elsie is of her neighbor.
Blethyn nearly matches the sympathy and loneliness of her character in Secrets & Lies, while Riseborough evokes some similarities to her daughter in that film. Perhaps that is what gets under your skin the most: Paul Andrew Williams invests so deeply in creating a work that is warm with just a hint of menace throughout, Colleen’s intentions staying mostly ambiguous. She doesn’t work. We learn she’s had a rough life, but when given the opportunity to wipe her neighbors’ bank account clean when Elsie’s down on her luck, she doesn’t.
John’s guilt over not being present for his mother takes hold, leading to a heartbreaking chain reaction that quickly shifts the genre––a stunner of a third act that is best experienced cold. If there is one flaw here in an otherwise impeccably crafted drama, it’s a conclusion that feels somewhat rushed, even as it’s slightly inevitable.
Aided by cinematographer Vanessa Whyte––who gives the film a 16mm soft-focus appearance that can suggest a late-80s Loach or Leigh film––Williams and his brilliant cast create a film that is equal-parts tender and shocking, turning horror tropes on their head. The main flaw is that Williams invests less in John, a relatable man balancing his family and career while caring for an elderly, stubborn mother; had the film traveled home with John (as Leigh might), Dragonfly would have been all the more tragic and haunting. The result is nevertheless a knockout bolstered by flawless performances.
Dragonfly premiered at the 2025 Tribeca Festival.
The post Tribeca Review: Dragonfly is a Haunting Mike Leigh-Inspired Thriller first appeared on The Film Stage.
