Publisher: CinemaSerf February 13, 2025
We start with a fairly traumatic car accident that goes some way in explaining just why, many years later, the sheep farming “Michael” (Christopher Abbott) is living with his immobile dad (Colm Meaney) and living a fairly unfulfilled life. Their neighbour calls to advise that a couple of his rams have been found dead on their farm and so when he goes to investigate, we meet “Caroline” (Nora-Jane Noone) who used to be his girlfriend before she left him for “Gary” (Paul Ready) and they had son “Jack” (Barry Keoghan). With no evidence of the corpses, he heads to the market to buy replacements only to find that his neighbours haven’t been straight with him and that there’s quite enough history here to ensure that “Michael” keeps his mouth shut. Meantime, things aren’t proving much better for the couple next door as their farm is struggling to pay it’s way and when their young son comes up with an unilateral scheme with his thuggish cousin “Lee” (Aaron Heffernan) to raise, rather brutally, some extra cash then things turn violent and dangerous now with just about every element of trust out the window! This isn’t a mystery for the squeamish as it highlights some of the real difficulties faced by hill farmers facing financial difficulties trying to make their inhospitable land pay. The story itself here is a bit of a mess, and though it does gradually start to make a little sense towards the end, for the most part it seems a little too thinly stretched and reliant on the time-shifting chronology to tell us an under-characterised story from differing perspectives as the threads rather far-fetchedly come together at the end. It’s a fine looking film offering an authentic look at a barely better than subsistence form of life populated by folks suspicious of newcomers and of each other, but I couldn’t help but feel this needed a much firmer hand on the storytelling front and Keoghan just too old for the part. Abbott delivers well, and it’s still worth a watch - but television in due course ought to be fine.