Sanity is not a finite thing. Film has often meditated on the fragile line between sane and insane. Now with new film LOST TRANSMISSIONS, director Katharine O’Brien and actor Simon Pegg new film released by 101 Films on digital 29th June 2020, it seems to stretch to breaking. Pegg plays as Theo Ross, a musician. A very well known and liked, critically acclaimed musician.  He meets and sets on the course of greatness, Hannah (Juno Temple).  She dreamt of music and money, writing for the great and the good. Suddenly things become difficult when Ross stops taking his medication. He hears transmissions in the static of the radio. He cant escape form the sounds that trouble him and now Hannah has to care for him, with only a chemical as a barrier. The medical part of  LOST TRANSMISSIONS is as absent here as most in Hollywood. Exposition reveals nothing and it need not. The commentary here is about creativity and identity. Do we draw our own identity from a creative construct or is it apart from that?  What happens when we lose our self within our self? I cant say that the answer is readily arrived at. Director O’Brien seems interested in the conversation but here space within is dull and empty. You feel nothing between and the agency of the leads, though emotional resonant, lacks depth. Pegg is the best part of it. He is a better actor than often given credit. O’Brien can be applauded for giving him room. Temple is a misfire. Not only the accent, which fluctuates but the fragility is misaligned.

For me the most difficult thing of all is that it is based on a true story. One that sounds gut wrenching and compelling. Reading between the lines, it also sounded like a raw awakening for those involved. None of this truly translates. I would like to say that cinematographer Arnau Valls Colomer deserves accolades for the great use of light in the film. Yes, as the advertsing says, it is naturalistic but it is also haunting and adds to a feel of the illness as transitory. Shame the whole does not match this bright spark.