Dark River

There's no question Ruth Wilson has superb charisma on screen and her co-star Mark Stanley is excellent as well, but this film gives the viewer, in my opinion, little room to "come up for air", as the storyline is just relentlessly dark and bleak. I thought the writer and director here Clio Bernard's 2013 movie The Selfish Giant was powerful and memorable, but her latest film is just too muddled and depressing for my tastes.

SPOILER: A welcome change from the British film industry away from lame comedies and its obsession with the plight of minorities and urban dramas to this excellent but disturbing Northern masterpiece. You certainly won't leave the cinema uplifted but if you're a drama fan you'll be well satisfied. I was more shocked than I thought I would to see the lasting effect of child abuse. This is really the foundation of the film which shows how the effects of a dark family secret can resonate for ever. Some excellent strong performances by the actors. This is a very visual film and the use of audio to enhance the impact of the scenes is well worth a special mention.

My rating 8/10 Highly recommended if you like powerful dramas

Ruth Wilson puts in a strong performance in 'Dark River', playing a young farmer who inherits her family's troubled legacy. She's good, but the film never completely escapes its "grim up north" sensibility, as a story unfolds of unmitigated harshness in a world inhabited only the by the terminally taciturn. One can credit the writers for not tossing in a throwaway romance; but without hope, it's hard to sustain the interest of the audience.

It is COVID-19 "stay at home" time, I found this movie on the Kanopy streaming site through my public library. Very English, I had to turn on the captions to be able to understand much of the dialog.

Although I haven't seen a lot of her work I am a big Ruth Wilson fan. About 34-ish here she plays Alice Bell, working for someone on their sheep farm. Then she gets word that her father had died so she travels there to stake her claim for the tenancy for her family's sheep farm but immediately meets resistance from her brother who hasn't been taking very good care of the place.

Alice had left home some 15 years earlier, and in flashbacks we are shown that she suffered from abuse by her father. She still had visions that he was there at times. Most of the story is about Alice and her brother locking horns and struggling to find the best course of action through this difficult situation. She wants to revive the farm, he wants to liquidate and take off with the profits.

Its rating is about right, it is a well made and well acted drama but without much joy.

Ruth Wilson carries this film in devastating fashion, through the dark, cold, windy, and disorientating farmland of northern England, where sister and brother vie for tenancy of their deceased father's land. With the menace of Winter's Bone and the tragic tone of Tim Roth's War Zone, the pain of an abused - an emotional cripple trying to forge through the trauma that transcends past and present - has never been made more precipitant than in Dark River. Words ring harsh, blows and falls are felt - this is one that lives you feeling wounded. Precede at your own risk.