@ Odeon Lothian Road, Edinburgh, Mon 22 Jun & Wed 24 Jun 2015

Jamie Adams / UK / 2015 / 90 min

Set in the soft, rolling hills of south Wales, Black Mountain Poets is a gentle and rather lovely tale of love and friendship among a group of thirty/forty-somethings on a writers’ retreat.

Alice Lowe and Dolly Wells play a pair of kooky sisters who, having stolen a car and with nothing more constructive to do, take up the invitation they find in the glovebox to make a guest appearance at a getaway for poets. There they meet a bunch of literary wannabes, including handsome-yet-modest Richard (Tom Cullen) and his insufferable-yet-talented girlfriend Louise (Rosa Robson), and ultimately cause something of a romantic kerfuffle.

This is the third of a trilogy of “improvised” films by director Jamie Adams, and the style results in some wonderfully natural performances. Adams has captured the mildly competitive, clubby ambience of such gatherings to a tee, without ever resorting to parody. Particularly sweet are the before-bedtime tent scenes, where the group chat amiably over torchlight. It’s almost like being sat with your pals at a summer festival.

Had it been more tightly scripted, it might have been hard for the film not to fall into caricature. To some, poetry is inherently ridiculous, and it’s easy to imagine how hammed-up foppishness could have crept in. As it is, there’s a satisfying realness to the characters. Lowe and Wells are particularly good, a loveable pair of near-failures. While they play it mainly straight, there’s nevertheless a chucklesome chemistry to their relationship and an affection that ebbs and flows throughout. There’s a backstory which never quite gets fully revealed, but in some ways the characters are better for it.

It may be too laid-back and bucolic for some tastes (there are a lot of lingering shots of ferns and a slow, soft-focus guitar playing scene), but it’s one of the more accomplished British films at this year’s film festival and a worthy winner of the Student Critics Jury Award.

Showing as part of Edinburgh International Film Festival 2015