In the first round of brief reviews from Glasgow Film Festival we cover a beautiful tale of last love, a bratty collage of Canadian high school life, and possibly one of the grimmest films of recent years; a vision so devoid of hope that it can only be set in a British seaside resort. 

In My Sailor, My Love (Klaus Härö/ Finland/ 2022/ 103 mins) we find a more pastorally pretty version of Ireland than that found in God’s Creatures, but this gently moving late-life romance has a lot more beneath the surface than picture-postcard visuals. James Cosmo looks carved from that very scenery as Howard, a rugged old salt whose sailing days are behind him. He lives a solitary life, partially estranged from his daughter Grace (Catherine Walker), from whom he was away for most of her youth. He was also away when his wife drowned, meaning Grace had identified the body. Although the physical distance between them has closed, there are too many regrets and recriminations to overcome. Into this chill steps Annie (Brid Brennan), who Grace employs as a housekeeper for Howard. Annie too is widowed, but is embracing freedom after an abusive marriage. As Annie falls for Howard, she tries to bridge the gap between father and daughter, although Grace begins to feel slighted by her father’s closeness to her employee.

Like stepping off a hidden shelf in the coast line, viewers expecting a cosy, heartwarming love story, may be surprised to find themselves in deeper waters. There is a life-affirming and tender romance at its core, but My Sailor, My Love also navigates tricky subjects like generational resentments, mental health, and the demands that growing old places on one’s family. There are no easy resolutions or Hallmark reconciliations here, and there is a real poignancy and melancholy that spring like tears from the way it deals with its themes. There are however three beautiful central performances that effortlessly retain empathy even when their characters are at their most flawed (which is often). Klaus Härö has rigorous control of the material, and the cinematography from Robert Nordström is gorgeous. Set in Ireland it may be, but the distinctly stoic Nordic sensibility of the filmmakers comes through, and when it allows sentiment to creep in, it feels fully earned. 4/5

From romance to bromance in Therapy Dogs (Ethan Eng/ Canada/ 2022/ 83 mins), a hit at Slamdance early last year. This punky blast of guerilla filmmaking blurs the boundary between fact and fiction as two students (Director Eng and Justin Morrice) set out to make the best high school video ever. The resulting footage forms the bulk of the narrative; a series of vignettes strung together like individual snapshots developing in a laboratory. Most of these see the two best friends and various classmates indulging in various silly stunts and imbibing industrial quantities of drugs and alcohol in the way that teenagers convinced of their own immortality do. Through the mad rush of seemingly random moments the characters of the two friends begin to emerge and the film stops being ‘the truth about high school’, and more an intimate glimpse into Ethan and Justin’s hopes and fears.

It’s rare that a film that seeks to replicate the high school experience actually comes close to authenticity, but Eng manages to achieve it. Therapy Dogs feels brash, exuberant, spontaneous and hormonal. It’s meandering and self-indulgent, and fully embraces all its contradictions. Even the moments where the actual artifice shows through serve to highlight how convincing the rest of it is. The endless japes do threaten to become repetitive and like all teenagers, the pair are genuinely infuriating at times. It also needs some time to sink in, given the breathless sprint of the film itself. Its qualities as a narrative only become apparent at a distance, like one of those pictures formed from a thousand smaller ones. But there is something original and vibrant at work here. Eng and Morrice seem to have tapped into the same nebulous magic that makes Jackass so weirdly uplifting. It’s rough and ragged, and frequently ridiculous, but also personal, honest, and charmingly eccentric. 3/5

There is no joy at all to be found in the remorselessly bleak Great Yarmouth (Marco Martins/ Portugal/ 2022/ 113 mins). Based on the testimonies of many migrants working in awful conditions in the UK, this harrowing slog of a film focuses on Portuguese workers trying to carve a living in the knackered Norfolk resort of the title. The migrants endure 12 hours shifts in a turkey factory while being fleeced for their wages to pay for equally appalling conditions in their cramped accommodation. These poor souls are wrangled by Tânia (Beatriz Batarda), a fellow migrant has worked her way up to the point where she may begin to dream of escaping. In the meantime she has to hearten her heart to the problems of her compatriots and ensure they’re forced into line.

Undoubtedly hard-hitting, Great Yarmouth is a chilling glimpse into the abuses inflicted on those seeking a better life. It’s unflinching in its depiction of slaughterhouse conditions and human exploitation, but it’s such a relentlessly grim viewing experience that it inspires nothing other than despair. Filmed in the sepsis-green tones of something like Saw II and devoid of anything approaching levity, it’s a blunt polemic the likes of which Ken Loach is often accused of making. Batarda is compelling as the human face at the centre of this storm, but there is little to cling to or root for. It’s a thoroughly dispiriting affair; one that comes with a side order of guilt for not being engaged in such an obviously well-meaning, but great, hulking slab of grisly social realism. 2/5

My Sailor, My Love screens Fri 3 Mar 2023 at GFT 2 and Sat 4 Mar 2023 at GFT 3 

Therapy Dogs screens Sat 4 and Sun 5 Mar 2023 at GFT 3

Great Yarmouth screens Sun 5 and Mon 6 Mar 2023 at GFT 3