starring: tom rhys harries, naomi ackie, max minghella, and eddie marsan

​

REVIEWER: lyall carter

Rising Hollywood star Matt Hagen descends into a horrifying revenge-filled monster when scientific ambition strips him of his identity and humanity.

The DC Universe continues to expand under James Gunn and Peter Safran, although its success has been varied. From Superman and Supergirl, alongside television projects such as Peacemaker and Lanterns, there has certainly been no shortage of ambition. And now we have arrived at Clayface. I knew absolutely nothing about Clayface walking into the screening. I couldn’t even remember whether I had seen a trailer, so I went into this latest DC outing pretty blind. While there are some good elements scattered throughout, Clayface struggles to find a coherent form of its own, leaving too many intriguing narrative threads dangling.

The film follows Matt Hagen (Tom Rhys Harries), an actor whose promising future is shattered when he is brutally disfigured. With his appearance closely tied to both his career and his sense of identity, Matt faces losing far more than his place in front of the camera.

Desperate to reclaim his former life, he turns to an experimental treatment that promises to restore his face. However, that possibility of recovery comes with horrifying consequences. As the treatment transforms his body, Matt gains the ability to reshape his appearance and take on the faces of other people. What begins as an attempt to restore his former self becomes a disturbing descent into violence and revenge, as his control over his body and his sense of who he is begin to unravel.

Narratively, Clayface follows a familiar path for a comic book origin story. Tragedy strikes, and we watch a character spiral into ever-increasing gore and violence. There are elements of this that work really well, but there are also some particularly interesting ideas that could have been explored much further.

One of these is the connection between Matt’s profession and his transformation. Here is an actor, someone whose work involves becoming somebody else, who gains the ability to literally take on another person’s face. There is something intriguing about that interplay between performance and identity.

Exploring it more deeply could have added richness to the narrative and given us a stronger connection to the character. But this is where Clayface doesn’t seem to know quite what kind of film it wants to be. Is it a deep character exploration of complex trauma? A story about identity and taking on somebody else’s persona? Or a crime film about mob bosses and revenge? There are promising elements in each of these directions, but the film struggles to bring them together into a cohesive whole.

Had these threads been pulled together more effectively, Clayface could have been a much more compelling film. There are good elements scattered throughout and glimpses of something richer beneath the surface, but it never quite finds the shape its story needs.

​

While there are some good elements scattered throughout, Clayface struggles to find a coherent form of its own, leaving too many intriguing narrative threads dangling.

★★★