The five-time British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) nominated drama tests both the moral fibre of its maternal protagonist and the patience of its audience.
★★✰✰✰
From an unnerving chorus of percussive oyster shell clatter, blistering strings and the whirling of coastal wavelets, a parochial Irish fishing village watches on in dull grief as the body of one of its sons is found floating in coldly foreboding waters. For Eileen O’Hara (Emily Watson) this would ordinarily be another bleak reminder of the perils that local fishermen routinely endure, but, as she studies the eyes of a wailing mother, she is reminded of her own boy’s absence.
That’s why then, on his prodigal return from years away in Australia, and mere moments after his mother warbles a longing prayer into her newborn grandson’s ear, Brian (Paul Mescal) finds himself met with an unexpectedly warm reception. His reappearance is a divine response to Eileen’s faithful pleas; her angel home and safe. But this same warmth is lost in Brian’s father, whose disquiet countenance forewarns of a darkness seeded beneath his son’s youthful charm, shrouding their past in unspoken mystery.
Mescal and Watson share moments of tender intimacy. The former attempts to make up for lost time, with heady excursions to the pub and a rather hasty return to his oyster farming roots. The latter, happily turning a blind eye when Brian brings home a wantonly purloined bass from the bounty of another fishing boat, believes her son can do no wrong. This simple life they once cherished, however, is inexorably capsized when a rape investigation against Brian throws Eileen’s maternal instincts into treacherous moral waters.
The sophomore feature from director Anna Rose Holmer holds this sensitive dilemma at its core. Calling upon its distinguished performers, God’s Creatures seeks nuance in the navigation of its delicate topics, placing an intense focus on the culture which facilitates Brian’s behaviour. In poorly-lit bars, the village’s men make light of the commotion. It’s clear that sexual assault has never been part of local parlance—most characters tip-toe around the subject, their opinions communicated through a series of discerning glances.
Watson bears her character’s tumultuous conscience with stark subtlety, her face a series of wind-burnt stares that rarely fracture into anything more than a tear. Her eyes manage to break through this hardened facade, however. Burdened by the guilt of her own actions, they carry a remarkable sense of penitence. Eileen’s arc is made all the more interesting as she shares a workplace with Sarah (Aisling Franciosi), the alleged victim. It’s a powerful dynamic, one that should satisfy the thematic intricacy that the film strives for, but ultimately finds itself disappointingly undernourished. Franciosi’s painfully limited screen time feels more like a product of misjudged writing than an earnest attempt to convey her character’s voiceless position in the village.
A later scene in Sarah’s home finds the two in claustrophobic physical and psychological space. “I suppose every house round here has the same ghosts”, Sarah’s tragic acknowledgement transcends the confines of her small fishing village, its solemn universality a glaring indictment of the reality many women face.
Beneath this slowly unravelling moral drama, Bensi and Jurriaans’ acerbic score reverberates with oppressive menace. The rusted groaning of harbour boats, distant cries of gulls and the raking of knives opening oyster shells coalesce to form a tactile sense of kineticism. While this drives an escalating malaise suited for the more narratively trenchant moments, there’s noticeable discordance when the rhythm of the film becomes overburdened by a number of empty scenes.
In these extended periods of time the pace sinks into a place of stasis, platitudinous dialogue doing little to provide dramatic levity. An earlier musing from Sarah meets the titular subject with this same emptiness “We’re all God’s Creatures in the dark”, a line that sounds nice spoken behind a fading cigarette, but is wanting of any real substance; jejune and raspingly inane.
It’s only within the superb tonal calibration of Irvin’s cold cinematography that God’s Creatures really distinguishes itself. Opening with an underwater shot in the dark and the violent currents of the North Atlantic Sea before abruptly cutting to a title card, there’s an immediate sense of the sinister. Characters are often positioned together in tightly framed close-ups, where harsh interior lighting broodingly isolates their faces. Outside though, Ireland’s verdant landscape provides respite for the eyes, its beauty a veneer to the baleful undercurrent which drags its subjects to the extremities of their moral constitutions.
The Verdict
God’s Creatures, for all of its thematic ambition, unfortunately finds itself struggling to surface. Despite a strong central performance, compelling visual lexicon and abrasively resonant score, the final product feels somewhat vacant, bleak and disappointingly bare.
Words by Samuel Parkes
God’s Creatures will release in UK cinemas on 31 March 2023.
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