Our second round-up from Glasgow Film Festival takes in quirky domestic drama, rural Ireland at its most beautiful and bleak, and an escalating psychological battle between a French couple and the hostile residents of their new Spanish home.
Adopting Audrey (M. Cahill/ USA/ 2021/ 92 mins) could have arrived in Glasgow direct from Sundance. This odd-couple comedy drama feels like it has the DNA of countless other breezy, indie efforts in its creation, and despite two strong central performances there is little to draw the eye to this film in particular. Jena Malone is Audrey, a rootless young woman who’s struggling to pay her rent after losing her job. As she endlessly browses YouTube videos she comes across the advert that gives the film its odd premise; couples looking to adopt other adults. This leads to Audrey meeting Sunny (Emily Kuroda), and her gruff German husband Otto (Robert Hunger-Bühler). Of course, it isn’t long before the wayward girl begins to melt the Prussian reserve of her new adopted father.
Weirdly enough, Adopting Audrey is based on a true story. Yet, there is little that doesn’t feel contrived in this rather lackadaisical work. Thankfully the always dependable Jenna Malone (who should have had a much more prominent career than she’s had) makes an enjoyable double act with Hunger-Bühler, and the scenes between them are far more watchable than the thin material actually deserves. But as much as the two leads struggle to spice up this thin gruel, it’s a solidly trite and anaemic affair 2/5
Man of the moment Paul Mescal joins an impressive cast in the oppressively dark family drama God’s Creatures (Saela Davis, Anna Rose Holmer/ Ireland, UK, USA/ 2022/ 100 mins). Mescal is Brian, the prodigal son who abruptly returns to the small fishing village he left for Australia years earlier. Despite not hearing from Brian for all that time, his mother Eileen (Emily Watson) is delighted. His taciturn fisherman father Con (Declan Conlon) is less than enthusiastic. It seems he has good reason when a charge is laid at Brian’s door, and Eileen provides a false alibi. It’s a decision that will have dire consequences.
God’s Creatures is a grim morality tale dowsed in shame and guilt that seems to come howling in with the bitter wind from the Irish sea. Watson excels as downtrodden, burdened women, and Mescal injects enough charm and blarney into his obvious ne’er-do-well to explain why his mother is so keen to have him back. Aisling Franciosi handles a difficult role as Brian’s old flame superbly (similar roles in The Fall and The Nightingale proving solid preparation. It’s a little too small-scale to deal with the amount of Biblical portentousness that booms in sepulchral thematic tones, but that same specificity works in its favour in its keen eye for tiny moments of character detail and its depiction of its close-knit (with all the good and ill that brings) community. It’s a tough, uncompromising drama with an at-best ambiguous attitude to humanity. 3/5
The Beasts (Rodrigo Sorogoyen/ Spain/ 2022/ 137 mins) won the Goya Award for Best Film, and it’s easy to see why. Director Rodrigo Sorogoyen brings real artistry to a potboiler of a narrative that has been the basis of countless horror films. Antoine and Olga (Denis Ménochet and Marina Foïs) are a French couple who have moved to a rural Galician village. The educated outsider draw the ire of violent, resentful brothers Xan and Lorenzo (Luis Zahera and Diego Anido). For the locals, the newcomers voting against the proposed construction of a wind turbine is the last straw, when they would have benefited financially. Xan instigates an escalating series of aggressions that reaches a crisis point.
As well as the film’s expertly-crafted thriller elements, it also goes deep on issues of class, xenophobia, and gentrification. It perhaps doesn’t go far enough in establishing the two brothers as anything other than dangerous antagonists – the financial element doesn’t quite raise enough sympathy – but the hulking presence of Ménochet as Antoine goes someway to redressing the balance. Dustin Hoffman in Straw Dogs he isn’t. Nodding to films like Deliverance, Southern Comfort, and even The Vanishing, its a tremendously taut thriller that vibrates with a deeply contemporary anxiety. 4/5
Adopting Audrey screens Thu 2 and Fri 3 Mar 2023 at Cineworld Renfrew Street screen 2
God’s Creatures screens Thu 2 and Fri 3 Mar 2023 at Glasgow Film Theatre 1
The Beasts screens Fri 3 and Sat 4 Mar 2023 at Glasgow Film Theatre 1