Showing @ Filmhouse, Edinburgh until Thu 31 Jan

Lenny Abrahamson / Ireland / 2012 / 88 min

Admitting you’ve done wrong is always hard, but Lenny Abrahamson’s stark portrayal shows the heartrending turbulence of living in guilt. Richard Karlsen (Jack Reynor) is a popular, fit, attractive and charming young man well liked by his peers and their parents. He’s part of the local rugby team and has good prospects for the future but one day he does something and cannot work out how to rectify it.

In setting up Richard with almost unwavering veneration, a fall seems inevitable and we wait with anticipation for the event. But it’s how he deals with it (ethically or unethically) and the effect it has on him that’s the production’s primary focus. The overbearing weight of Richard’s actions are emphasised by the narrative’s linear structure and through lingering close-ups, which paint an intimate and stripped-back portrait of his turmoil set against the unassuming Irish landscape. Richard’s repentant anguish (and one tormenting display by his father) displays genuine regret but also the nagging inability to leave it unresolved.

After the incident, we see Richard’s previously held sense of propriety weaken as his saintly image is further tarnished. His dilemma boils down to if he needs to confess to assuage his conscience or if he can resolve himself to an amoral self-preservationist outlook. Abrahamson’s film then demonstrates the difficulties in making the right decision or living with the wrong one.