In ‘The Souvenir Part II,’ a human-scaled epic concludes

By JAKE COYLE
AP Film Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Joanna Hogg first had the instinct to make a film about her then unfolding relationship to her heroin-addicted first love in 1979. Back then, she didn’t feel capable of tackling something so ambitious and personal. Her career detoured, instead, into television. It wasn’t until Hogg was 47 that she determinedly returned to movies. Hogg felt she was finally ready. The result, the two-part “The Souvenir,” is a stunner. A sublime work of memory and autobiography, “The Souvenir” captures a masterful filmmaker using all her accrued skill to revisit her early, half-formed life as a young filmmaker. Part two opens in theaters Friday.