A wintry study in desolate rainy greys and claggy duns, this evocative feature debut for writer-directors Joseph Bull and Luke Seomore tracks drifter Adam (Barry Ward from Jimmy’s Hall) as he meanders semi-aimlessly around the country.
While he checks in with ex-girlfriends and old friends and slowly steels himself to visit the family he left behind, near-wordless flashbacks featuring Francis Magee as Adam’s father gradually reveal a tragedy tangentially related to the BSE crisis of the early 2000s.
That all might make this sound like just another slice of British miserabilism, but it only lightly treads over social issues such as homelessness and agricultural poverty, and actually feels more interested in the strange textures of everyday life and psychological nuance. For all the embedded detail about seaside towns and dingy provincial discos, it often doesn’t feel like a British film, and that’s meant to be a compliment. Seomore’s unnerving, looping and lowing score, occasionally evocative of Mica Levi’s contribution to Under the Skin, is another plus, especially in the powerful opening scene.
