A mini-series turned film, Merjen rides the oxymoronic line between flawed and fantastic, ambitiously taking leaps of faith that may initially seem alienating, but quickly prove to be risks worth taking.

Merjen’s journey to the silver screen was not a simple one. Inspired by true events, the psychological drama was originally penned as a theatrical live show by Salvu Mallia, a play that unfortunately never made the transition from script to stage. But it would become a mini-series; a three-episode arc directed by Abigail Mallia, Salvu’s daughter and director of 2017’s Limestone Cowboy, and adapted for the small screen by Carlos DeBattista. Smash cut to the present day and Merjen has been re-edited into a feature-length film, cutting out all the fat to create a coherent experience that stuck with me well past the earnest credits.

But that isn’t how the film starts. Poor, troubled, and victimised, Merjen (Claire Magro) is stuck in a cycle of abuse as she refuses to let go of her short-tempered childhood sweetheart Bertu (Fabio Mifsud). Their relationship is not healthy one, Bertu generally speaking through the medium of his fists while Merjen refuses to escape from her daily torture – not that she has much of a choice in the matter. And it is intriguing but the premise struggles to distance itself from its simple nature: a toxic couple that only hold love and contempt for each other, a combination that can only lead to a single stop.

I began to feel my interest wain. Yes, the pair are rife with intricacies but their respective performances struggle to keep up with the well-needed intimacy. As Merjen and Bertu threaten, scream, grope, and objectify one another, Magro and Mifsud lack the chemistry to turn this spark into a roaring flame, their explosive encounters troubled with a theatrical rigidity as lines feel impersonal. What doesn’t help is the audio quality, a technical aspect that continued to falter across the entire film. Scenes are echoey, often having to resort to the English subtitles as a soft-spoken line is consumed by the previous’ reverberations while many pieces of the sound design are completely missing – a knife clattering to the ground silently, dissipating the tension as the immersion is ruined.

Frequent overlit scenes make the visuals easily digestible but lack the dramatic flair the narrative deserves

The stiffness is felt holistically across the entire cast. Tania Schembri’s Lonza is sincere but rehearsed while Analise Mifsud’s Gracie is sweet but also jarringly silly, the pair performing with clear intentions but tending to miss the mark. It feels like a soap opera; a lot of emotionally engaging moments told through a stage-like language as subtlety is exchanged for a more over-dramatic approach. What doesn’t help their case is the cinematography and its telenovela resemblance; frequent overly lit scenes make the visuals easily digestible but lack the dramatic flair that the narrative deserves.

But Merjen’s greatest flaw is its scattered structure, scenes arbitrarily jumping back and forth across the film’s timeline in what seems to be an attempt to add excitement into a plot with a clear and foreshadowed ending. Rather than adding suspense it distanced me from the characters, marring the well-needed human connection that makes Merjen such an interesting personality. I couldn’t understand why it was happening, what the point of the needless confusion was. Until I did.

A broken family further fractured… Tania Schembri, Claire Magro and Analise Mifsud. Image: Take Two.

Everything began to click into place. Unlike most non-linear films, Merjen isn’t trying to force you to solve the film before some Nolan plot-twist, rather it is imitating the fractured and distraught world Merjen lives in. The narrative fog clears naturally and effortlessly, as if this story couldn’t be told any other way. And with it, every other flaw began to bloom.

The pleasant but surface-level performances didn’t suddenly transform into perfection, but every character is given a moment in the spotlight, the cast prepared to instantly rise to the challenge – especially Mifsud as she turns Gracie from a footnote into a headline. The alienating cinematography is recontextualised; what once seemed haphazard becomes determined and purposeful, mirroring the common dystopia as the lack of nudity that once diminished the vulgarity now makes it even more horrifying.

At no point is Merjen ever boring, but all the blemishes that plagued its first half instantly disappear as the film clarifies itself with natural ease. All the excitement that I thought had disappeared returned in quick strides, expertly and tactically hidden behind an ever-evolving plot that begs for attention (and deserves it by the bucketload). Mallia and DeBattista knew exactly what they were doing, purposefully spinning a raw and personal tale that, by the end, completely surprised me as my chest began to tighten with invested anxiety. And yes, it is flawed, but it is an emotional experience, one that requires effort and patience which, if seen through, is well worth the wait.