by Amanda Webster
Worth: $12.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Emma Laird, Benjamin Coyle-Larner, Laura Frazer, Sam Riley, Lindsay Duncan
Intro:
... visually rich and atmospheric, but it doesn’t always achieve the narrative cohesion needed to pull audiences into its world.
Mint, from writer‑director Charlotte Regan (Scrapper), is a gritty underworld crime drama set against a stark Scottish industrial backdrop. It’s also a modern‑day Romeo and Juliet tale, centred on the forbidden love between Shannon (Emma Laird), daughter of a powerful crime boss, and Arran (Benjamin Coyle‑Larner), the son of a rival underworld figure.
Shannon, bored, bratty and beautiful, is the twenty‑two‑year‑old daughter of Dylan (Sam Riley), a refined but brutal crime boss. Shannon functions largely as a decorative asset in her father Dylan’s world, whom he parades around like chattel to thuggish suitors that she considers beneath her. She’s waiting for love and to “feel the spark” with someone. It arrives in a beautifully styled meet‑cute with Arran at a deserted train station. The train pulls away; there is a flirtatious exchange across the platform. They meet on the overpass; their hands touch, and sparks fly like a thousand fireflies, but both unaware that the spark between them is already doomed.
Dylan presents a debonair exterior, but exposes a streak of brutality. His cruelty surfaces in a bizarre fight‑club‑style scene at a party, where he orders a father to fight his own son as a test of loyalty. Cat (Laura Fraser) is his admiring, obedient wife, dutifully tending to his needs. In an abrupt narrative shift, Dylan announces that he’s walking away from the business, a decision that throws Cat into uncertainty and threatens to unravel the façade of domestic harmony.
Ollie (Lindsay Duncan) is a hardened matriarch determined to keep the family business on track; her disapproval of Cat’s habit of shielding her husband’s secrets simmers beneath every interaction. The dynamic between the three generations of women, Ollie, Cat and Shannon, is one of the show’s most compelling threads. Ollie and Cat share the familiar tension of a brittle mother‑in‑law relationship, while Cat and Shannon relate more like sisters, gossiping and sharing confidences about boys and makeup.
Visually, Mint is cinematic and highly stylised. Impressionistic, surreal imagery and super‑8‑style flashbacks create dreamlike scenes that are easy to get lost in. However, unfortunately, at times, the narrative becomes lost with us. The plot becomes muddled, and the show’s attempts at intrigue often feel murky and abstruse. With little concrete information about the criminal underworld that the characters operate in and unclear stakes driving their decisions, it’s difficult to fully invest in their journeys.
The dialogue is sparse and at times awkward, leaving some relationships feeling inauthentic. The chemistry between Laird and Coyle‑Larner is particularly unconvincing; the intensity of their infatuation isn’t supported by their interactions, which leaves the central romance feeling underdeveloped.
Mint promises a story of trauma, power, love, and betrayal. It’s visually rich and atmospheric, but it doesn’t always achieve the narrative cohesion needed to pull audiences into its world.
