Adam Bellamy’s ‘Vulnerable’, at times confounding and perturbing, takes us on a very personal journey of memory and the unspeakable. As a young child, Bellamy found himself in an extremely unhealthy relationship with an older man who years later was imprisoned for grooming and sexually abusing children. The empowered writer, actor and director has bravely taken his own story and crafted a heartfelt, impactful and affecting film.
What drives someone to behave in such a way towards a child? Does he understand the enormous impact those days had on me? Was any of that shared happiness, which I’d cherished for so many years, real? And what would happen if I had the chance to confront the man responsible?”
Considering the heavy and grave subjects which are dealt with in ‘Vulnerable’, the setting – the soft hues of a perfect English summer’s day – may seem surprising. The quaint English village in the countryside where our story unfolds is not where you would expect such a confrontation. Meadows, daisies and butterflies flying overhead remind you of carefree times and Bellamy chose to juxtapose the dark with light, playing on those overwhelming swathes of nostalgia we can all recognise and need to be wary of.
Bellamy takes tremendous care to convey the discrepancies between past and present, a core principle of the film. We instinctively know that we cannot quite trust those hazier, quieter memories of the younger protagonist. We are brought back to the future with sharper tones. The cinematography is beautiful and time has been taken to meticulously craft every shot.
There is an ambiguity to the whole film that is unsettling and makes you really see both sides of this story, which may not sit right with you as a viewer, but I appreciate the challenge. As Bellamy has sat with this for decades, there are emotions here which need to be explored and pondered. Bellamy explains that “this is how it feels in reality – never really settling on either side of truth or deception.” All of this is positive, and this brave and commendable film should not be shied away from.
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