Tag: Film

Black Christmas (2019)

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So this will probably be the last film I see this year. In my review of Knives Out I mentioned that I think that probably be the last great film I see this year. After seeing this movie I can categorically say I was I definitely right. This movie is not a great movie. In fact it’s kind of bad, and for reasons I hate to bring up as it makes me sound like a dick. So the reason I didn’t like it? The politics. Now I don’t want to be one of those “keep politics out of films” dickheads. This is essentially a film about how patriarchal power structures silence and oppress women, particularly when it comes to justice for rape victims. That’s a message that is, depressingly, still incredibly relevant and is well worth discussing in a film, the issue is that the film itself isn’t good.  It means well and what it says are things that have to be said, but they have to be said better than this. I haven’t seen anything this hamfisted since Kermit’s date night.

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Not the worst thing someone has put in a pig though

It deals with themes such as sexual assault and the PTSD that can come from it, but it does it really badly. For a film about someone breaking out and trying to escape that memory, the main character isn’t given much of a personality outside of that. Almost all her actions (and most conversations) in the film come from that one event, so whilst the character is trying to not let it define her, the film insists upon it.

The other characters aren’t written much better either. Nobody is given any depth, especially the villains. Horror movies need compelling villains to kill characters, or you need characters you care about and feel scared for. This film has neither. The villains are so 2-dimensional they’re practically stick figures. I’ve had occasions where trailers have spoilt the film, this almost does it in the opening text crawl. It has a quote about using the supernatural to punish people made by a character who founded the college the film is set at. So when you see a statue of that same person oozing a black liquid then being used on people wearing the same clothes as the killer, you can pretty much guess what’s going on. That’s a big issue with this film; how predictable it is. As soon as I saw one character I literally thought “he’s too obviously evil to be evil”. But no, I was wrong, it turns out that he, and all the characters who you might think would be evil, turn out to be, shock horror, evil!

So the black sludge, the scene with the reveal is where the film takes a weird left turn. It manages to be both weird, and predictable. I get you don’t want to do the same thing as the original film, but when you divert this much from the original then what’s the point of remaking it anyway? It would be like doing a remake of Psycho and it turns out Norman Bates is possessed by a ghost. Actually, that is actually exactly what it is, the villains in this use the black sludge on impressionable students so that they get possessed by the founder of the college. Here, the film misses an opportunity to do two really interesting things.

One: a debate about whether possessed people who kill people are evil or whether the possession is to blame. Yeah, that doesn’t happen here, possessed or not, they all get locked in a room and burn to death.

Two: throughout the film, the main character gets close to a guy called Landon. He gets caught and possessed by the spirit of the founder. The college founder is an old white guy who owned slaves and is possessing men to get them into the positions of power which he feels they deserve. Now I don’t want to cast aspersions on a slave owner, but I don’t think his “only men should rule the world” extends to non-whites like Landon. The intersectional nature could have been a really interesting subject to tackle, but it doesn’t. And I think that’s REALLY white. I don’t get how they can miss such an obvious political point to make.

So should you see this film? Regrettably, I’d have to say no, it’s just not fun, or scary. It’s yet another horror film restricted by its rating as it can’t get as violent as it needs to at some points. This is very notable with one death where we see a dead body on a chair, it gets spun around and before we get a full shot of the face and the damage done to it, it cuts to a reaction shot. If you do that “slow-motion chair spin” shot it should end on a reveal of the face, that should be the closing shot of that sequence, the slow nature of the chair spin is a build-up to that moment. In this it’s like a build-up to the revelation that she’s dead, which is something the audience already knew from the second we saw her, so what was it for?

I haven’t seen the original (or the first remake) to judge whether it’s good compared to them, I imagine people who saw those will actively HATE this film as they change almost everything about the plot. I can’t imagine either of those two films are worse than this, but I can say with 100% certainty that it’s not as good as the song by the same name by former X-Ray Spex singer Poly Styrene

Knives Out (2019)

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I went into this expecting to be slightly underwhelmed to be honest. I knew it had had good reviews, but I was concerned it would be overly stylised and too self-knowing to truly be enjoyable for me on a personal level. Yeah, I was wrong. I loved this film, it will probably be the last “great” film I see this year. December is usually full of overly sentimental family movies, so I can’t see anything topping this. Still, what a way for the year to end. This is one of the best scripts I’ve seen in a film all year. It reminds me of Searching, which as anybody who speaks to me for more than a few minutes will know is a good thing. Like that film, this is also one which goes where you wouldn’t expect it to. That’s always a good sign for a whodunnit. If you figure out the ending in the opening thirty minutes of the film, the film has failed (the exception is Murder On The Orient Express, I already knew the ending of that film but it was so well done that the film was enjoyable anyway). This is different though, you get told the “killer” relatively early on, the rest of the film is dealing with hiding that fact, and figuring out who hired the detective in the first place.

This could be viewed as a mistake, if the audience is here to find out the killer then why are you revealing it that early? The answer? Because they can. The script is good enough to carry that subverted expectation. It’s not just a good script in terms of story, the dialogue is brilliant too. It’s REALLY subtle in parts, there are unsaid jokes throughout the whole thing. My two favourites are in regards to how the family speak to Marta, the recently deceased’s nurse. When we first see her a member of the family comes up to her and says “I wanted you at the funeral, but the rest of the family voted against it”, and you feel “oh, well at least that family member is nice”, but then it happens again, and again, and again. Practically every family member says that to her. The other thing they say: her families country of origin. They all say different ones. Some say “your family came here from Ecuador”, whereas some describe her family as coming from Mexico. It’s a brilliantly subtle piece of writing that indicates how the family actually view her, and the fact it’s never explicitly pointed out is genius, once you realise it you’ll laugh every time it happens again. It was so subtle I expected it to be brought up later as a plot point and be flashbacked back to in a montage so you realise “oh yeah”, but it never was, and for that it deserves applause.

It’s not just the script though, the acting is brilliant too. It’s been marketed as an ensemble film but I wouldn’t really say that’s the case. There are definitely a few main characters, in reality, it’s more of an ensemble supporting cast. Some of the characters are entertaining but nowhere near enough is done with them. I can’t really go into more details without spoilers but trust me, there are some actors in this who deserve more.

If I had to say something bad about this film? I’d struggle to find something to be honest. The directing could be slightly better. It looks great, some of the images the film constructs are superb, but there is a feeling it could flow slightly better visually. Like if you took each shot individually it looks great, but put together they’re only okay. Compared to the way that someone like Edgar Wright does visuals and you get the feeling it’s somewhat lacking. For a normal film, this would be fine, and the shot constructions would lead to it looking fantastic. But for a film with performances and a script THIS good, it pales in comparison. The script is a 9.7/10, the directing is “only” a 7.9. Yeah, I’m really struggling to find bad things about this film if THAT’s what I’m going with. Go see it at the cinema, I’m probably going to do so again.

Ben Is Back (2018)

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Damn you Cineworld. This film, for whatever reason, wasn’t shown at my local cinema. It’s weird, they had trailers for it, and posters up, but then didn’t show the actual film. It’s a shame as I really wish I saw this with other people. It’s a film that’s crying out for witnessing alongside people so you can see their emotional reaction. I really liked this film. I thought it would suffer from being very similar to Beautiful Boy. In reality, all it does is make Beautiful Boy look worse. It makes it seem slightly more selfish in comparison. I’m not saying it was selfish, but that film ended with details about the family the film is about, whilst this one ends with details for addiction centres to contact if you’re suffering too.

There’s one other moment where this film definitely wins out for me: when it shows us WHY the character is addicted to drugs. He got put on highly addictive pain medication by his doctor. This information is showcased in the best possible way; by having Julia Roberts approach the doctor who prescribed them saying they’re not addictive (and who is now suffering from dementia), and basically calls him an asshole. It’s a great scene, and it’s one which showcases an ugly truth that the world tries to hide; the role of prescription drugs in drug abuse. Drugs addicts are usually showcased as having their journey start with “they wanted to be cool so sparked up a marijuana doobie at the discotheque with their fellow cool cats” or “Their parents asked them to tidy their room so they rebelled by injecting heroin into their eyeballs”. This allows us to not care about drug users as we see them as junkies and losers, which makes it easier to dehumanise them and support policies which harshly punish them (and ironically driving them more towards drugs). This means that any form of funding for addiction centres is pushed against because “they’re just loser junkies, they shouldn’t get government help”, so that money instead gets spent on expensive bottles of whiskey for politicians (that’s not a joke btw, the houses of parliament has a fully taxpayer-funded bar which has led to at least one politician getting so drunk he couldn’t vote, which is his job. If I drank at work I’d be fired). This film shows HOW addiction can start, and how it can happen to literally anybody with the way the medical system is operated which decides to just throw pain pills at everything because things like physical therapy will take too long and doesn’t make drug companies any money.

I guess I should actually start talking about this film, right? Fine *sulks*. I’m starting to really like Julia Roberts. I didn’t at first as I saw her as emblematic of what I dislike about Hollywood, style over substance with really bland stories which just play it safe, over sanitised films you feel you’ve seen before you’ve seen them because of how formulaic they are. Those films don’t allow you to see much performance as a lot of the characters are flat and don’t get to showcase much genuine emotion. Lately, she’s been in some films that show how talented she really is. Her performance helped to anchor Money Monster (which is a real forgotten gem), and she is BRILLIANT in the remake of Secret In Their Eyes. Her great run continues in this. Her anger, pain, and the emotional frailty this situation is giving her are all over her character and she performs them perfectly. Lucas Hedges also continues to show that he is really f*cking good. He’s in a weird position as he’s been critically acclaimed, yet hasn’t yet gone into full mainstream where you can use his name to sell a film to a casual audience. I feel he’s nearly there though. He’s just one film away from fully breaking through, and when he does it’s going to be magnificent. He has a great future ahead of him, and I look forward to it.

So yeah, if you get a chance to watch this, you have to see it. It’s that damn good. It’s emotionally devastating and beautifully ugly.

Good Boys (2019)

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They’re kids, but they’re swearing? Hilarious! Hahahahaahahahahaahahahahahaahahah. The story is terrible and sexist, but look, there’s a kid swearing, hahahahahahahahaha.

That’s what I worried this film would be like. That it would focus so much on making these kids seem like adults that it would forget to make them kids. That it would just be a gimmick, and a gimmick which will wear itself out pretty quickly. This film actually worked though, was really funny, heartwarming, and most importantly, it let the kids be kids. It had plenty of moments where it played off their innocence and naivety. The best moments are when it comes to drugs, and they refuse to throw it in the river because of the negative effects it could have on the environment. Moments like that are kind of cute and wholesome, kind of like a season finale of a long-running sitcom. It also has a surprisingly good attitude to women. There is a moment where they fly a drone camera in order to spy on two women, but they get called out on it and are suitably chastised.

Actually, that’s pretty much a good summary of the general tone of this film, a season finale. You feel like you’ve known them for a while. That’s not always good though, the familiarity doesn’t really breed contempt, but it does sometimes seem to breed complacency in terms of the script. There are moments where it is a little bit too by-the-numbers, a little too bland. And then there are moments where they accidentally sell a sex doll to Stephen Merchant. The madcap moments are brilliant, with one notable exception.

There’s a scene where they go into a frat house to buy some drugs (it makes sense in context) and the frat guys are complete dicks, so one of the kids ends up shooting him with a paintball gun. This leads to a scene where a room full of men in their 20s are attempting to beat the shit out of pre-pubescent kids. And the stuff they do should logically kill them. That scene’s a little uneasy to watch, mainly because it completely takes you out of the film, you realise you’re watching something fake and it breaks the immersion.

That’s a shame as the rest of the film is believable to the point of embarrassment. It makes you remember what an idiot (and kind of a dick) you were when you were younger. The situations aren’t universal, but the motivations are. It’s a film about acceptance, personal growth, and adjusting your ambitions. These are things which we all went through as kids, and are still going through now. It’s that kind of relatability which anchors the best moments of the film. None of this would matter if the actors weren’t at the top of their game, thankfully they all are. We all know Jacob Tremblay is talented, but Keith L. Williams and Brady Noon are great too. Noon, in particular, gives a strong performance that carries the film through some of the weaker moments. Molly Gordon and Midori Francis are also great, and share a chemistry which makes me wish they could lead a film together.

So in summary, you don’t HAVE to see this film, but I strongly recommend you should.

Crawl (2019)

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It’s been a while since we’ve seen a fun animal-based disaster movie. By which I mean one that’s realistic, so that counts out Rampage etc. Shame as they’re great to see in cinemas and really allow directors to show off what they can do. This is a film about alligators hunting people who are trapped in a house during a hurricane, that sounds fun. Also, it’s only about 90 minutes long and scores very highly on rotten tomatoes. All good signs.

With that in mind, I have to say, I don’t see it. I don’t get the great reviews for this. I was not a fan of it. For a 90 minute movie, I spent a lot of time looking at my watch. It never really engaged me. I think part of that is because it only had 2 main characters who were present throughout the whole thing. For a lot of the movie, one of those characters was in a safe space and wouldn’t get harmed, the other was the main character. As such there was no real sense of dread as you knew that they were going to survive at least until near the end. It’s impossible for a film like this to get a sense of dread if you know that the characters aren’t in danger as the story won’t let them be. This film does kill some characters, but they’re characters who appear for a few minutes, and then die. Their entire purpose is to get some blood in the movie, but since you don’t really know who they are you don’t care about them. This could have been solved very easily; instead of setting it in a house, set it in an office block or a shopping centre. Just SOMEWHERE where you have more characters. That way you can start with a group of 5-6 people and then whittle them down as we get to know them. If you avoid establishing which ones are the main characters then you give an air of “all bets are off” so you don’t know who’s going to survive. The issue with this is because there are only two people, and they’re in a confined space, there’s not much you can do with that from a narrative standpoint. Most of this film consists of the characters making progress, and then that progress is immediately negated. It also features one instance of really weird editing. There’s a moment where a character is struggling to reach a flare, and it flashes back to her in her youth, reaching her hand out to her dad to help her out of a swimming pool. A bit weird but nothing more than that, but there’s then a scene almost immediately after that where she’s literally reaching out to grab her dads hand to help pull her up onto the roof. I feel that’s a much better thematic link and it’s really strange they wasted it. I almost forgot that though as it’s near the end and the closing shot just looked kind of cheap and weird, almost like it was from a video game.

The two characters we do have are kind of intriguing though. Kaya Scodelario’s character veers from really smart to really dumb, depending on what the plot needs at that moment. For example; when she struggles to move the body of her father, she immediately finds some sheets to put him on to help move him. Very smart. But as she drags him she drops her phone where the gators are. That’s not the dumb part. The dumb part is she sneaks to get the phone, and then when she has it, instead of going back to safety with the phone, she stands still and makes the phone call in an unsafe area. There’s also a scene where she gets the attention of someone by shining a flashlight outside, yet when the police arrive a few scenes later, resorts to shouting instead, which can’t be heard over the sound of the wind and rain. There are also MULTIPLE scenes of someone standing in waist-deep water instead of just moving to stand on the thing right near them that gets them out of the water (in one example, a character literally stands next to some stairs).

I’ll admit some of it was good. The aforementioned moments where the characters were smart are great to see. And you can’t fault the acting at all. Also, with the exception of the closing shot (actually most of the exterior scenes) it all looks and feels real. You’re never really too aware of CGI.

So yeah, that’s it. I wouldn’t really recommend this tbh, unless maybe you’re super drunk.

Brightburn (2019)

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Okay, so every year I do end of year awards. These include the good (best actress, best film, etc), but also the bad (worst film, worst moment, etc). Usually these are decided near the end of the year once I’ve had distance from a lot of things, that way my response isn’t too immediate and I don’t put a meh film as one of the worst films of the year. It takes something truly special to get nominated for an award that soon after seeing it. For that to happen I have to be 100% certain it will deserve it. Why am I mentioning that now? Because this will get nominated, in fact it’s probably the frontrunner for one of the awards. So which one?

Best film?

I mean, it’s about what if Superman was evil, I love dark unique films and this fits it. But it’s not that. It’s way too pedestrian for that, and it never lives up to the potential that the concept promises. It feels way too restrained but I’m not sure what by.

Best actor for Jackson A. Dunn

He plays the title role as a young teen coming to terms with the fact he’s essentially God. A fascinating character that a lot of young actors would kill for. So is that where it wins? Nope, he is good, very good in fact, but not great.

Scariest Film

I mean, the idea of a Superman-like character being evil is a terrifying concept to think about. But it’s not that. A lot of the violent scenes come off more comical than scary. There’s a moment where he snaps a character’s hand, it’s the first piece of ultraviolence in the film, and it was met with laughter in the screening I was at.

Best Character

It has to be that, right? I’ve never been invested in Superman as a character as I’ve felt he’s too good and perfect. So a twist on that should enthral me, right? Nope, it makes so many allusions to Superman that it doesn’t feel like a real character in itself. It’s so in debt to its influences that it never stands out as an independent thing.

Best Moment

Close. This film needs chaos and violence, but 90% of it was in the trailer. Actually now I think about it, most of the film was in the trailer. Almost all of the major story beats, including the ending, were in the trailer. IIRC, two of the main characters final lines are in the trailer. That’s just weird. It does come close with the post-credits scene though. Setting up potential sequels and spin-offs which do excite me. Yeah this film kind of suffers the same problem as M.Night’s Glass Trilogy, where at the end of each of the three films (Unbreakable, Split, Glass) I wasn’t excited about what I just saw, but I was excited to see what happened next (not excited enough to go out of my way to see them, but meh). Same here, I want to see what happens next. This film seems very much like a prequel to a much better film, but there’s a chance that film (a kind of evil Justice League) might not happen. Which is a damn shame.

So, which award will this be nominated for? I’m ashamed to say:

Biggest Disappointment.

I really wanted to like this film. I bigged it up to people for months, so for it to be so boring is a huge disappointment. It felt too long despite only being 90 minutes. It had some interesting moments but overall it just felt like I was playing catch up to the trailer. This should have been great, yet it’s not even okay.

Ma (2019)

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I enjoyed this, but I think I would have enjoyed it more if I didn’t see any trailers. This film is a real slow-burner. It’s all building up to the final moments, but too many of those were in the trailer, which kind of ruins it as it means you’re spending a lot of time building up to something you know is going to happen.

That’s one of the films biggest downfalls, that whilst it is good, it’s not exciting. You’re not focused on what IS happening, because you’re too busy thinking about what you know WILL happen. That’s a shame because what is happening is a really good piece of film-making backed up by some great performances. Some of the character work could be stronger. Ma’s descent into madness is kind of frustratingly handled. You know like when a sitcom has planned a romance, but the series has like 24 episodes so the romance aspect is incredibly drawn out and stop-start, so it seems like things keep putting them back at square one you keep having those “oh, we like each other” moments? Yeah, it’s like that. It’s incredibly stop-start to the point where there are too many breaking moments. On the bright side, this means that when THAT moment happens (she runs someone over and leaves them for dead) it is IMMENSELY satisfying. The whole closing stretch is superb, but it is a somewhat (dare I say) boring journey to get there.

It doesn’t help that a lot of the characters are dicks, there’s not many you sympathise with. This would be okay if some of the kills happened earlier as then you’d have some catharsis from their pain, but because it takes so long for the violence to happen you just end up watching terrible people being awful for most of the film.

I’ll say now though, NONE of this is due to the performances. Octavia Spencer continues to show that she can do almost anything. I’m pretty sure Diana Silvers is the love child of both Liv Tyler and Anne Hathaway. McKaley Miller as well is perfect for the role and I want to see more of her work. Luke Evans is suitably disgusting and creepy, in a way I didn’t think he’d be able to do.

I’ve mentioned loving the ending, there’s one exception to that, the final shot. Spoiler warning by the way. The film ends with Ma realising her situation is helpless (her house is burning down with her inside it), accepting her fate she goes back to her bedroom and lays with the corpse of Luke Evans character, it’s kind of sweet and a great ending for a tragic character who only wanted to be accepted. It’s a beautiful closing shot full of pathos, just the two of them together in death, ruined by an aerial shot of the house burning down. I feel that shot kind of took away from the moment and made it feel smaller.

Greta (2019)

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This film is deeply flawed. Features a character who is constantly getting phone calls from someone, and she never thinks to block the number. And when she tells the police she’s being stalked by someone, they point out it’s perfectly legal to stand in the street outside a restaurant where she works as it’s public property. One, this seems wrong, and I really hope it is, if that’s true then the world is a terrible place (but, restraining orders do exist, right?). But also, that time would have been a good point to mention to the police all the bags she found at the woman’s house, all with names on which if investigated would have been discovered to have belonged to missing people. That lone would have been enough to warrant an investigation. Also, we later find out that she’s not supposed to be in the country due to medical abuse, the police would definitely have discovered that and acted on it, thus stopping the entire plot. It’s an issue when a film is based on a kind of flawed premise. But you know what? I didn’t care, I really liked this film.

I knew nothing about this film going in. Well, I knew kind of what it was about, and one of the people in it. Other than that, nothing, I went in with no preconceptions. I think that was a good thing, I didn’t go in expecting tenseness from the off. Although I’m not sure that would have mattered because this started relatively quickly. Don’t get me wrong, the story itself was still slow moving, but it kicked off almost immediately. Now when I say it was slow, I mean it. The plot was almost glacial but in a good way. Like it was slow moving, but it was always moving forward. There wasn’t much time wasted, which was nice. What wasn’t nice was this film, there’s one moment involving a cookie cutter which I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to forget, was one hell of a scene that woke the audience up. But even before that the film has a great sense of tension that never lets up, you’re on tenterhooks for almost the entire time and it’s brilliant. Yes, there’s a twist near the end which is way too obvious to really be counted as a twist, but it’s enjoyable nonetheless. There’s also a great moment of realisation for the audience. If you want to avoid spoilers, stop reading now as I have to spoil it. There’s a moment early on in the film where there’s a loud banging behind a wall, Greta (the kind of evil woman in this) explains it’s just builders next door, and she bangs on the wall to shut them up. Later on in the film Chloe Grace Moretz’s character is behind that wall and starts banging on it, and we realise, as an audience, what exactly was happening earlier. When Greta was planning to kidnap Moretz’s character, she already had a victim in the house who was listening to the whole thing but unable to do anything to stop it. Imagine that from her point of view, terrifying. That moment is just subtle enough to work, and it’s glorious.

Know what else is glorious? Isabelle Huppert, I haven’t seen her in anything before but she’d make a great Bond villain. Actually, she’d be great in a horror film too. I cannot praise her performance enough. The film is almost worth seeing based on it alone, but you should go see it anyway.

Red Joan (2019)

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I was genuinely intrigued by this movie, a movie about an elderly woman turned out to be selling state secrets during the war? That sounds interesting as hell. And it’s based on a true story? Ok, I’m sold, this is going to be great.

It’s not. For starters, Judi Dench is barely in it, almost all of her scenes are in the trailer. It’s also VERY loosely based on a true story, there was a woman who sold state secrets to the Russians, and that’s pretty much it. Her motivations were to even the playing field etc. As she said:

“I did what I did, not to make money, but to help prevent the defeat of a new system which had, at great cost, given ordinary people food and fares which they could afford, a good education and a health service.”

She says something similar in the film too, but it’s not really shown to be the case. We don’t see much of her moral conflict causing her to spy. So what does cause it?

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Am I being too subtle? I’ll try again.

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Penis, it was for penis. No moral complications, it was love and lust that did it. And I find that disappointing. They’ve reduced a complex and interesting character to “well she was but a mere woman, defined entirely by her relationships with men”. Her motivations are not her own, but the men around her. There’s a moment where she watches in horror at Hiroshima, but it’s not enough to distract from the fact that the entire motivation for her character is her love for someone. And sadly the film isn’t good enough to make you buy into any of the romances, they all seem a bit too easy, a bit too Hollywood. And the trouble is is that the film is based entirely around the relationships, and since you don’t buy into those, you don’t buy into the film as a whole. The most interesting parts are the parts set in the modern day where Judi Dench is explaining herself to her son. That section has genuine emotion and heart, and takes up about 10 minutes of the film total. That’s what the film should be about, I didn’t particularly care about what she did, I want to know how it affects her now. All the rest just seems like parenthesis on the sentences this story is telling. On the plus side, you can’t argue with the pacing of the opening section, it gets STRAIGHT into what you came to see, so that should be commended. On the downside…..almost everything else. There’s a great story to be told about Melita Norwood, but this doesn’t come close to being it.

Wild Rose (2019)

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I was slightly apprehensive about this film. I worried it would try too hard to be emotional and would just fall flat. I don’t really connect with a lot of country music on an emotional level, so if that’s the lynchpin of the film then I just won’t get it. Also, it’s a British movie about a working-class person wanting to live their dreams; films like that tend to not do well in the “great plot” stakes, usually incredibly predictable and obvious. There was a small glimmer of hope however that it would work. As this film went on that hope became larger, I became emotionally invested in this film and it just really works, a lot. Most of that is due to the performance of Jessie Buckley, who I’ll admit I’m not too familiar with but I feel I should be, her performance in this is breath-taking, turning what could be an unlikeable character into one you really root for and that you can’t help but love.

Make no mistake, this is a SCOTTISH country film, the fact it’s set in Scotland adds a lot to the story and the character and makes it unique. I mean, it’s also a Scottish COUNTRY film, wouldn’t really work with most other music genres, there’s something about the soul of country music which lends itself to this film. I mean, I suppose it’s also a Scottish country FILM as it wouldn’t work if it was a fruit basket, but that would just be silly, albeit delicious.

It’s not perfect, there are a few moments which only exist to service the plot, in fact, there’s one character who almost seems to exist only to further the plot with her actions. Don’t get me wrong, the interactions between them and the main character are incredibly heart-warming and lovely, it does seem a little hollow at times. The way the main character reacts to her seems incredibly out of character and only seems to happen to cause a plot-problem later down the line.

I mentioned the performances earlier, and whilst they are good, they’re not the best part of the film. The best part is something you can’t really identify but is there; the heart. Everything in this film seems like it’s done with great love and emotion, and it’s that which carries this film through the weaker moments. The heart Jessie Buckley puts into the songs she performs brings tears to your eyes. Even the ending is full of heart, ending with something that’s not the happy ending the film is expected to have, but the one that the film deserves, and it’s beautiful.