Blank Check with Griffin & David · Blank Check Productions

You Were Never Really Here with Sean Clements

February 15, 2026·2 hr 44 min·16 clips
Griffin explains how Lynne Ramsay's camera creates PTSD by oscillating between extreme closeness and clinical distance during violent scenes.
Hosts Griffin and David are joined by guest Sean Clements to analyze Lynn Ramsey's 2017 film 'You Were Never Really Here', starring Joaquin Phoenix. They discuss the film's sparse, efficient storytelling, Phoenix's physical transformation and performance, Ramsey's unique directorial choices in depicting violence and PTSD, and the movie's place within her filmography and the landscape of independent film distribution.

As heard by us

A hammer-heavy Joe discussion that turns a moody poster into sharper film criticism.

Blank Check uses this conversation about You Were Never Really Here to linger on the film's hardest-to-sell surface: the last line, the moody poster, the "taxi driver for a new century" pull quote, and the running joke that Joe does things a little differently.

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Why you'd press play

For when you want a movie podcast to start with a poster and end in moral wreckage.

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