Young, married and hopeful, Paul (Niall McNamee) and Sophie (Shana Swash) don’t have much to call their own: his guitar and dreams of a music career; her camera and photography studies; a beat-up Citroën 2CV; a moped; a modest home; each other. It’s enough. But the cruel vagaries of fate and an unusually punishing screenplay take everything from them, bit by bit.
Director Jane Gull’s follow-up to My Feral Heart is a well-intentioned but clunky doom saga. It’s certainly a pointed indictment of a society that can see a family caught in a cycle of homelessness – Love Without Walls covers similar territory to Paddy Breathnach’s sharper, more focused Rosie. But the combination of an overstretched running time, excessive use of querulous folk noodling on the soundtrack and uneven performances undermines its potency.
