Worth: $17.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Josh O’Connor, Alec Secareanu, Ian Hart
Intro:
...has an indomitable soul which will win it many admirers.
This is very much a British film, but its themes could be said to be universal. Director Francis Lee also wrote the screenplay and it feels like he is very close to the material. The film is set on a hill farm in Yorkshire, a county that has always prided itself on its toughness and independence. The farm is run more or less single-handedly by Martin Saxby (played by the ever-reliable Ian Hart). He is in his sixties and, though he won’t admit it, the life is getting a bit too tough for him. He has to learn to let go and rely more on both his wife Deirdre (Gemma Jones) and his son Johnny (Josh O’Connor). Johnny is capable of doing all the animal husbandry but he is also bored and restless and looking for more than just getting pissed each night and tending sheep. He is also gay; a fact that he has to negotiate in a community that does not necessarily share urban values about such matters.
One day a Romanian farm hand called Ghoerghe (Alec Secareanu) comes to work on the farm. At first, he and Johnny share an uneasy bantering relationship but, eventually they bond and fall in love. In contrast to the rough, desperate, up against the wall sex that Johnny has experienced up till now, Ghoerghe shows a tenderness and desire for real connection that changes everything. Of course, they still have to tread carefully in relation to the wagging tongues in the village.
The film has been described as ‘raw’ and ‘confrontingly explicit’ but that isn’t necessarily true. Or, at least, it depends on how we relate to gay sex and love on screen. If this level of on-screen sex and nudity were shown in a heterosexual love story one wonders if the warnings would be considered necessary. It is just a love story and physical passion is part of any worthwhile love. The obvious point of comparison might be Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain. There are obvious parallels; it centres on two young men who are taciturn and sometimes tongue-tied. They live in a way that is ‘remote’ in both a physical and cultural sense, and they struggle to balance their inner needs with their own (and society’s) norms/expectations. The performances are uniformly good and the film has an indomitable soul which will win it many admirers.
Deirdre is Martin’s mother, not his wife who has long since left him.
There is nothing in the film to suggest the locals have issues with same-sex relationships. Some of them are xenophobic and anti-immigrant.
The difficulty for Johnny at the outset is his inability to access and express emotions other than anger and resentment.
Stobes
Am really peed off that this didn’t made it to Perth, a backwater when it comes to a lot of well-rated films. Luckily I was visiting Melbourne and caught it there…and thought it was wonderful.