This exceptionally candid documentary – perhaps the closest British equivalent to Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation – transforms the camera into a therapeutic tool to reassess a complex family history. Recalled home to Largs after her mother suffers a stroke, film-maker Karen Guthrie encounters a surprise houseguest: her estranged father, Ian, returning to the fold years after starting an affair while working in Djibouti in north-east Africa. Given the relation between director and subjects, we expect the heightened intimacy, but here the subsequent silences, awkward small talk and sudden emotional outpourings have been stitched into an epic chamber play. There have been few more perceptive and empathetic non-fiction portraits of the hold a particular kind of patrician male can exert over those around them. Some scenes, inevitably, make painful viewing, but Guthrie proves fearless about peering into those interpersonal grey areas most clans shy away from.
