Jim (David Thewlis) and Veronica (Laysla De Oliveira) are a father and daughter who carry many secrets, most of which have gone with the former to his grave. Now deceased, Jim is about to be buried, and his daughter decides to honour his final wish to have his funeral at a specific Catholic church, for reasons she isn’t quite clear on, something she shares with Father Greg (Luke Wilson), who is just as flummoxed to find out that someone he had never known to be a part of their congregation was insisting on being laid to rest in a place he rarely ever visited. However, Veronica begins to narrate her father’s story, taking the priest through the trials and tribulations of a man who led a very difficult life. A dedicated food inspector, Jim was passionate about his work, even though it meant he often had to collide with the operators of various restaurants, who weren’t acclimated to the rules and regulations that govern the service industry. However, beyond his work, Jim has many further challenges – his wife died decades before, and his daughter has been imprisoned for reasons that aren’t immediately made clear, but gradually come to the surface as she comments on her own life. Their two stories collide when Veronica exposes the secrets embedded in their relationship, which involves extortion, sexual deviance and death, and the past and the present come into conflict in ways that unsettle the priest, who is doing his best to build a narrative for how to talk about a man he knew nothing about, but who has proven to be far more difficult to pin down than anyone was able to during his lifetime. The question is, whether one can know more about someone in death than they did while they were alive – and what kind of questions can be asked once they’re no longer here to answer them?

In a long career that has mainly seen him tackle some of the most difficult existential issues known to us, Atom Egoyan has touched on a wide range of themes. Not all of his films are as successful as others, but nearly all of them are worth watching for one reason or another, even if only based on a few small components that make them worthwhile. Guest of Honour is his most recent effort, and quite a valiant work of socially-charged commentary that may be incredibly overwrought in some of the discussions it is having, but gradually grows to be quite an exhilarating piece of heightened fiction, a fascinating character-driven melodrama with a few terrific performances, a strong story that has a lot more merit to it than many have given it credit for, and a general atmosphere of looming danger that serves the story exceptionally well. Many have referred to this as something of a return to form of Egoyan (in terms of the themes he is exploring throughout the piece), solely on the basis that it is another of his pensive dramas that ruminate on life itself, and while it hasn’t received much in terms of outright acclaim, it deserves to be considered on its own terms, with its compelling use of real-world situations as a launching pad for an insightful glimpse into the human condition being far more interesting than initial reactions would have you believe. It’s a simple but effective drama that may not carry any sensation of being a major work, but still meets all the necessary criteria to be a worthwhile endeavour and just another reason to look deeper into Egoyan’s career, especially the works he’s produced in recent years, and his ability to extract such potent emotion from the most straightforward premises, and make some bold statements without being all that revolutionary.

It’s been a few decades before the world saw David Thewlis gallivanting through the moonlit streets of London in the masterful Naked, but as we can see in Guest of Honour, he hasn’t lost any of that brilliance. He is having something of a banner year with multiple interesting projects, but this is the one that seems to utilize him the best, situating him in the main role rather than having him play supporting characters that are often more interesting than the leads. In the role of Jim, Thewlis finds the perfect balance between a likeable everyman, and someone who is willing to take on a sinister set of characteristics for the sake of finding answers, which he is perfectly happy to do if it means that he gets the resolution he needs. Thewlis is capable of being both charming and terrifying, and Guest of Honour makes exceptional use of this – he is a good man driven to malicious behaviour, and while it is shown to be relatively harmless, as well as having a clear purpose, it only serves to make the character more nuanced than we’d expect at the outset. This is certainly a film with clear flaws, but Thewlis’ performance is one of the few truly impeccable aspects of it, almost to the point where it seemed like he deserved to be in a better film, since the work he was doing here was quite incredible. However, the film does use him well, and understands his strengths as an actor, and they’re utilized with the steady hand of a filmmaker who has shown himself to be incredibly capable of extracting masterful performances from all of his actors. Laysla De Oliveira and Rossif Sutherland are also quite good, and benefit just as well from Egoyan’s knack for bringing out masterful performances from any actor.

While the character is at the centre of the film, Guest of Honour isn’t too insistent on exploring the various machinations of the life of a food inspector – while it does give us some fascinating (and often quite amusing) insights into the daily routine of someone who is feared by many, but insists he is only doing his job, the film becomes slightly comical, which sharply contrasts with the more serious material underpinning it outside of this narrative. Egoyan composes this film as a variety of narrative threads, which weave together the past and present in significant ways, and manage to convey a much deeper sense of intrigue than a more chronological approach might have accomplished. Had Guest of Honour being more straightforward in terms of its plot, there’s no doubt it would’ve lost most of its impact, since so much of what makes this film so compelling seems to be derived from the fact that it occurs at the intersection between melodrama and mystery – we’re presented with some vague concepts at the outset, and then the rest of the film gives us the chance to unpack a variety of clues we receive along the way, culminating in a series of revelations towards the end that allows everything to fit into place. Had Egoyan gone for something more traditional and linear, we’d have just another prosaic drama about disturbed people trying to find a place in the world. The ultimate approach may be a bit scattered and overwrought at times, but it works perfectly well in the context of the story, and is mainly what is responsible for elevating this film and making it as interesting as it was by the end.

Guest of Honour isn’t a particularly major work, and it is divisive by design. Unfortunately, the days of Egoyan making films like Exotica and The Sweet Hereafter are behind us, since his subversive edge seemed to have slightly dulled over the course of his career, but this doesn’t mean that he has failed to say something with this film. It’s a simple film, but one that has a lot of value if you put aside some of the more unnecessary shortcomings, such as the occasional introduction of a plot detail that doesn’t have much bearing in the central premise. Looking beyond the simplistic confines of the film, and focusing instead on the underlying message, you’re far likelier to see exactly why Egoyan derived poignant emotion from a relatively trite premise. Guest of Honour is a film about trauma, working through the demons of the past in the hopes of finding some resolution to the scarring quandaries that afflict absolutely anyone. It’s delicate filmmaking that may not always work, and may come across as awfully heavy-handed at times – but like any imperfect work, there is still something to be said about the process, and Egoyan certainly doesn’t neglect to make sure there is still some merit embedded within this film. Far from his best work, but one that is undoubtedly work seeking out, since its flaws are notable but not necessarily enough to dismiss the film overall, Guest of Honour is a compelling drama about broken people trying to put together the fragments of the past, reconciling the linger aftershocks of tragedy and mental illness, and finding hope in the most unlikely of situations, which makes for a profoundly moving and deeply haunting glimpse into the human condition, facilitated by a director who is undoubtedly one of its most keen observers.