Abandoned Man (now on Netflix) is a Turkish melodrama that opens with a dedication: “For children with wounded souls and repairers,” it reads, with a typically sloppy Netflix translation. Don’t worry, it gets better from there. Veteran television director Cagri Vila Lostuvali helms her first feature, pairing Mert Ramazan Demir (long-running Turkish series Golden Boy) with young Ada Erma, playing an uncle and niece who bond in the wake of tragedy. This is a straightforward and emotionally direct drama that has us wondering if it’s admirably simple or merely simplistic.
The Gist: Baran (Demir) was only 14 when he went to prison – although he never committed a crime. His older brother Fatih (Edip Tepeli) killed someone in a hit and run accident, and their father impulsively made Baran do the time. His reasoning? Baran was a minor and the punishment would be less severe than for Fatih. Baran looks stunned as the police take him and then we abruptly jump to the day of his release – 15 years later. So much for a less-severe sentence, although the screenplay never addresses that. Baran walks out of the correctional facility to find Fatih waiting, quite literally on his knees, begging him for forgiveness. Baran isn’t ready for that. In fact, he’s angry. Bitter. Seething. He’d carry that grudge to the Moon and back if he could.
But Baran doesn’t have many options. Their parents are dead and he’s an ex-con with nothing but a few bank notes in his pocket and all his worldly belongings in a duffel bag. For some reason, Fatih’s young niece Lidya (Erma), quickly takes a shine to her uncle – a pure and innocent soul seeing a good man’s heart, it seems. Lidya’s mother Azra (Burcu Kavrar) isn’t keen on her brother-in-law, calling him a “murderer,” an indication that she maybe doesn’t know how things went down. Azra isn’t happy about much these days; they don’t seem to want for much, but they’re behind on rent and Fatih is not only steeped in debt, his inner torment manifests in alcoholism and a demeanor that’s kind of chaotic and sniveling. He may need therapy. They may need to have some serious conversations. They may even need a divorce. And Baran sits, brooding and sullen, as they argue.
Baran struggles to find work – the mark of an ex-con. He can fix anything, and dreams of opening his own auto repair shop with a friend from prison, Esat (Rahimcan Kapkap), who works for a gruff boss, Musa (Ercan Kasal). Then, tragedy strikes. Fatih and his family get in a terrible car accident. Fatih is in a coma. Azra dies. And Lidya, well, she’s OK, and now Baran is responsible for her. The one-sided affection between them becomes increasingly one-sided – she’s not only smart, and cute as hell carrying around her favorite stuffed giraffe, but she’s basically an orphan now. Baran puts all his money down on renting a garage for his shop, then learns it was a con. He’s utterly broke now. Nothing is so bad that it can’t get worse, ever. But you can see where this is going – Baran and Lidya don’t need material things, or even a home, when they’ve got each other.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Gifted followed a similar tack, with Chris Evans as the uncle and McKenna Grace as the orphaned niece.
Performance Worth Watching: Erma ends up giving the key performance here – if she wasn’t capable of drawing us in with the unadorned purity of a child’s point-of-view, the movie wouldn’t work in the slightest.
Memorable Dialogue: Baran gets heavy: “When you take a life, you carry that person’s coffin with you for the rest of your life.”
Sex and Skin: None.
Our Take: The hand of god is definitely a silent character in Abandoned Man, intervening in the plot whenever things get too sketchy or dire for Baran and Lidya. The screenplay, by Deniz Madanoglu and Murat Uyurkulak, is predictable and episodic, putting its protagonists through moments of joy (cue the too-cutesy-by-half uncle-niece bonding montage) and hardship (they’re homeless for a bit) before The Universe rewards them for being good people. However, it’s easy to admire how the writing mirrors Baran’s psychological journey, paring away some of the superficial dramatic complexities (read: it kills off a thorny character) so he can achieve the clarity and simplicity he needs in order to endure.
And that’s where the simple/simplicity hair needs to be split. The film doesn’t seem at all interested in differentiating between murder and involuntary manslaughter while addressing Baran’s burdens, or even addressing the agony he surely feels after being forced to fall on a grenade for Fatih, a character who’s sidelined in a hospital bed for most of the movie. Instead, Lostuvali focuses on the relationship between Baran and Lidya, working Musa into the plot as a key supporting character.
The characters and drama are stripped-down enough to function as a blank slate for the audience to project their own emotional blahblahblah, but that ultimately renders Abandoned Man thematically thin and more than a little bit manipulative. As ever, it’s a more profound and meaningful experience when films draw characters in detail, with foibles and eccentricities, so we may better understand them, and find things to love about them beyond base kindness or an empathetic spirit. The shot Lostuvali returns to repeatedly finds Baran peering through a broken window into the humble garage where he wants to open his shop, an image that adequately reflects the state of his heart and soul. And “adequate” is the word to most aptly describe this movie.
Our Call: Sweet as Abandoned Man can be in moments, it’s ultimately too simplistic for its own good. SKIP IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.