Burn Burn Burn

For a movie listed as a comedy, Burn Burn Burn sure made me cry a lot. This is not to say it’s inaccurately listed as a comedy. But the film is about dealing with death. Its use of comedy heightens the tragedy more than many films that are just straight up sad.

Burn Burn Burn is about two friends dealing with the death of their close mutual friend, Dan. Dan has died of cancer. He’s left his closest friends Seph and Alex instructions to four locations where Dan wishes his ashes to be scattered. Seph is a struggling actress in a relationship with a man she might not love anymore. Alex is a lesbian with a general tendency to bottle up her problems and refuse to share information with the people she loves. As Seph and Alex travel around the UK to visit Dan’s desired locations, their relationship is tested by the emotional fragility of the situation and the fact that they’re inherently flawed individuals. Video messages from Dan add another emotionally volatile element to their time in the road together.

So obviously, a main theme in Burn Burn Burn is about dealing with death. What’s most successful about the film is that it captures the messiness of such a heavy topic. Seph and Alex do not always react or respond to this event in a way that would be considered “correct”. Likewise, Dan himself in his videos is not the perfect after-death sage with wisdom and grace about his condition. Much as the film is good at finding comedic moments about how messy death is, the subject matter does make the film too heavy to be one that gets a lot of overt laughs. There’s always something very moving to me in seeing someone trying and failing to mask their pain with jokes or a positive attitude. There’s a lot of that here.

But even as Burn Burn Burn continues and veers away from attempts at comedy into just an imperfect portrait of grief, the film remains incredibly engaging. Admittedly, it’s not always the fun side of engaging. I became genuinely anxious about what terrible thing these women would say to each other next. Seph and Alex have moments of being truly awful to each other over the course of the film. What helps is the fact that the film does end on a positive note. Heavy and upsetting though it often was, the film ends in a way that suggests Seph and Alex’s friendship is now stronger. Seph and Alex can look forward together into perhaps a brighter future than when they first embarked on this trip.

I did wish for more focus on WLW themes because of course I did. Alex is a lesbian which is mentioned semi-frequently in the film but everyone around her is straight. I debated whether this even counted as a WLW movie. Seph is more of the lead as a more well-known actress (Laura Carmichael) plays the part. Also, Alex’s main personality trait is bottling things up and a refusal to engage so she doesn’t have as many lines. However, Alex is definitely a co-lead who has her own conflicts and stories to resolve. Some of these are about her being gay but the major secret she holds back isn’t. I always champion queer characters having stories and conflicts not hinged on them being queer and that’s absolutely the case with much of Alex’s journey here.

Burn Burn Burn is a really solid movie. Much as there are successful moments of comedy, it is more likely to make you messy cry than laugh. The film successfully captures the messiness of grief and death as well as the basic imperfections that come with being human. Between this and her follow-up feature, Vita & Virginia, director Chanya Button has made two WLW in a row that I enjoyed and made me cry a little. She’s definitely one to keep an eye on as her career develops not just for quality queer movies but quality cinema full stop.

Overall rating: 7.3/10

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