Ben Mendelsohn in Una will really mess with your empathy

ADULTS who take advantage of children are monsters, right? Maybe it’s not always that black and white as Una messes with your sense of empathy.

BEN Mendelsohn has played his share of bad guys.

Just a recent sample includes the villain, Director Krennic, in Rogue One, the menacing Pope in Animal Kingdom and the darkly conflicted Danny in Bloodline.

What distinguishes Mendelsohn’s antagonists from your average blackguard is his ability to imbue these characters with so much depth that no matter how devilish their actions, you still manage to root for them, even if it’s just a little bit.

That’s the allure of Ben Mendelsohn.

He brings that same level of complexity to Ray Brooks, a paedophile in the guise of a suburban everyman.

Based on David Harrower’s play Blackbird — the playwright also penned the screenplay — Una is an intense dissection into the relationship between Ray and his victim Una (Rooney Mara) at two different stages of their lives.

Now in her late 20s, Una tracked down Ray to a warehouse a few hours’ drive from her home in the UK. These days, Ray is known as Peter, a married mid-level supervisor fond of khakis and checked button-down shirts.

When Una turns up at his workplace and confronts him, she doesn’t mince her words — “You had sex with a 13-year-old” she says matter-of-factly.

What follows is not the expected anguish a lesser film would’ve offered. It’s an intricate and morally complicated dance between two broken people.

Ray sincerely believes he’s “not one of them” while Una can’t reconcile her feelings of abandonment. All that chemistry and unresolved tension charges the interplay between Ray and Una.

An uncomfortable but charged sexual energy.

Scattered throughout these present-day exchanges are flashbacks to the incident which landed Ray in prison and Una testifying by videolink at his trial.

Una is Adelaide-born, Reykjavic-based Benedict Andrews’ feature debut as director. Andrews has previously only worked in theatre and opera and he brings that performance focus to the big screen.

He also transports that use of Spartan spaces to enhance his actors’ work. Weaving Ray and Una throughout the labyrinthine warehouse, from a windowed goldfish bowl-esque lunch room to the claustrophobic stalls of the bathroom, Andrews heightens the tension, oscillating between the threat of discovery for Ray and the volatile state of Una’s emotions.

Mendelsohn’s Ray isn’t a black-and-white monster. The Aussie actor shades him with sympathy, muddying our own sense of morality by the very fact we can find humanity in someone who’s done the unthinkable.

That Mendelsohn can make Ray seem small despite his own towering screen presence is also no easy feat to pull off.

Mara and Riz Ahmed as Ray’s co-worker are also wonderful. But the revelation is British teen Ruby Stokes who plays young Una in the flashbacks with a mature vulnerability that belies her tender years.

Ruby Stokes as the young Una.

The only quibble about the performances is that both Mendelsohn and American Mara slip in and out of their British accents which can be distracting.

Una is an extraordinarily uncomfortable film, a challenging showcase of powerful performances that linger. It also reinforces Mendelsohn as one of Australia’s greatest acting legends, and one who is finally getting his due.

Rating: 3.5/5

Una is in cinemas from today.

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Originally published as Ben Mendelsohn in Una will really mess with your empathy