From Todd Haynes’ Safe to Paul King’s Bunny and the Bull, agoraphobia is alluring territory for fledgling filmmakers. It allows them to explore emotive, relatable character dramas while forcing them to get creative with a limited physical space. Such is the case with Keith Klopp’s Translations, which sees a housebound translator forced to confront her fears during a visit from her late brother’s best friend.
Stef (Kate Morgan-Jones) hasn’t left the house in years following the death of her older brother. Her isolation having exacerbated from an emotional episode to a fact of her daily life. She works from home and seems content within the confines of her rustic Welsh abode. However, the appearance of Evan (Alan Emrys), her brother’s best friend, opens her up to the possibility of escaping her fears.
It’s a tentative romance that these two forge, borne out of awkward, but familial chemistry to the point where I wasn’t sure if they were friends or siblings (which thankfully gets clarified before the hooking up starts). The transition to deeper intimacy is helped immensely by the capable performances of its relatively new leads. Morgan-Jones carries the full weight of the film as Stef, crafting a character that’s strong-willed, driven but also vulnerable and resistant to change. She has exactly the kind of screen presence required to entertain, even in an empty room.
Meanwhile Emrys has the arguably tricker role as Evan, the man written to help Stef break from her malaise without coming across as a condescending white knight. He arrives armed with charm and a gentle humour but it’s his supportive side that wins us over. Sharing the grief over the death of Stef’s brother he has no desire to push her out of her comfort zone further than she’s willing. He’s doing his best to help her heal on her terms and their relationship becomes all the more endearing for it.
Unfortunately, the black and white truth at the heart of Translations is that love can’t fix everything. So Stef and Evan have to face the truth that they can’t be together under the current circumstances. Rendering Stef’s home, previously a quiet, comfortable space, into a place of longing and emptiness. It’s a testament to Klopp’s freshman director skills that he can do so much to characterise a single location without much flair or clever trickery.
If there’s one major drawback to Translations it’s that despite being a film about a translator and partially written in Welsh, the film has barely anything say about the language of people. Nothing between Stef and Evan needs translation, for better or worse. Both wear their hearts plainly on their sleeves in emotive, sometimes overwritten dialogue. Predictably Stef’s eventual escape from her agoraphobia comes with typical ‘feel-good’ vibes that the tone borders on saccharin.
Ultimately Translations achieves its aims without exceeding or innovating on them. It’s a solid debut from Klopp and an excellent showcase of its two leads that could have benefited from pushing the boat out just a little further.
