The beautifully intense Kelly + Victor is a dark, passionate and inverted love story that mixes tenderness with the toughness. Kelly (Antonia Campbell-Hughes) meets Victor (Julian Morris) on the dance floor in a Liverpool nightclub, and they find themselves at her flat, making love with a passion and urgency neither has experienced before. The more time Kelly and Victor spend together, the more they realise how much they care about each other. At the same time their time in bed begins to get more and more intense, until it all goes a little too far (for Victor at least) and he decides to break things off. But love is not a simple thing and there remains a chance, despite the complex nature of their relationship, that they should be together.
Debut feature writer/director Kieran Evans (who made documentary Vashti Bunyan: From Here to Before), has astutely adapted Niall Griffiths’ acclaimed novel. It is a candid and compelling story that, while it heads into dark and vaguely disturbing territory, is infused with a real sense of honesty and affection. The support performances are all terrific, but this is a film that belongs to the open, powerful and tender lead performances by Antonia Campbell-Hughes and Julian Morris.
Mark Adams, Screen International
