It Is in Us All

There is something unique about this movie. A story which begins with an act of violence and ends with an act of violence, with so much aching tenderness, and barely contained emotion between. There was enough feeling in this to fill 5 films. Sit back into the rain soaked landscapes of Donegal and the atmospheric soundscapes. The sets are equally atmospheric and spartan. The costumes were sensual and deepened your intimacy with the characters. Cosmo Jarvis is a joy to watch. His ability to coax you deep into his storytelling is irresistible. And I will be seeking out and watching anything by the writer and director Antonia Campbell-Hughes. Masterful film making.

Upon completing my watch of this indecipherable, preposterous cinematic mess, I couldn't help but come away from it asking myself, "What the hell did I just watch?" Writer-director Antonia Campbell-Hughes's debut narrative feature is so "nuanced" as to be utterly vague and patently incoherent. I probably gave this one more than sufficient benefit of the doubt while screening it, awaiting a payoff (or even a half-hearted rational explanation) come movie's end, but no such luck. The meandering, improbable screenplay of this unfocused tale about a car accident victim who becomes inexplicably fixated about a younger uninjured survivor from the same incident makes virtually no sense, jumping from one ostensibly random situation to another without seeming rhyme or reason, much of it padded with repetitive extraneous shots of the rural windswept Irish landscape. What's more, it's puzzling why this offering was selected as a featured presentation for an LGBTQ+ film festival, given that there are almost no references to the protagonist's sexuality or the gay community at large. It truly boggles my mind how reviewers have praised this incomprehensible exercise in ill-conceived, poorly executed celluloid self-indulgence. Avoid this one at all costs.

I'm now aware that risking to watch a european arthouse movie can lead me to anger and frustration. That's the least to say about this movie. Just take account that it's not even EU founded, that's to tell how low this is. Well, I know now that it is very possible to do worse than E. U. taxpayers funded garbage movies.

While this was slow, while the both most important scenes where absolutly implausible, while a lot of dialogues were nearly impossible to decifer to anyone not used to such strong accent and so bad actors' pronunciation and sound capture, while some cameras where not even set to stabilisation (in the car at the end, it's not handheld-style intentional, it's technicaly just an error)... I did watched it to the end (if you call it so, but yes there's an end).

May be the director wanted the audience to depress and get suicidal after watching that. Well, I laughed at myself to have watched it. I feel so ridiculous ! I even laugh again right now, writing this review and thinking again about this movie ! Actors must feel bad to have now that thing in their profile.

I won't spoil any of the plot, you might dare to try it out to challenge your intelligence, but it's just that the movie ends without telling us what happens to the most friendly and alive actor in this movie, the cow.

I was curious then to read some press review, it's the most funny part of it, how some reviewers tried so hard to find something good to say ; yes, Ireland landscape is beautiful and, and..., and that's it. It's funny to read the Guardian's one, she details well the beginning and... well, she obviously gave up and didn't go further :-)

This is not a gay-themed movie, characters can be replaced by anything else. Location can be replaced by any other one too.

Warning, should be rated 18 for depressing and dangerous behavior. Don't let your teenagers watch that.

'It is in us all' is not a satisfying watch. It has all the look and self-importance to become a very serious art-house deep dive into a human psychology... or something -from the mysterious characters to sweeping wide shots of the landscapes to an extended scene that nearly amounts to body-horror. I sat there and waited something to happen, to go deeper, perhaps even dark. It didn't. It's all misty to the end.

But at least it made me think about one aspect, which the director may never have intended and I may have totally blown out of proportion, but... I find the dynamic of Anglo-Irish relationship featured in the film rather interesting.

For many British (especially English), Ireland remains something blurry back in their mind. A kind of a little brother figure, still feels like a forgotten part of their nation, somewhere they can always visit and impose themselves on but nowhere they particularly want to be anyway. This attitude you can picke up from Hamish's English father. For him, Ireland is just a backwater, and the difficult relationship of the past (represented by his failed marriage to Hamish's Irish mother) is just water under the bridge. In other word, it's just not worth putting much thought to.

On the other hand, the Irish response to the English visitor is a complex mixture of curiosity, fascination, and veiled suspicion. One moment very friendly, but just below the surface there's hostility that runs deep from their acrimonious past relationship.

Hamish, half Englsih half Irish, sits right between these 2 clashing dynamics, and eventually breaks down in the subtle but unbridgeable gap. He arrivs Ireland first as a totally unsympathetic stranger. Even the fatal car accident doesn't seem to stir him much, and he seems to take it as just something happened. Only when he realises the forgotten Irish root, he finally looks around. He's inexplicably attracted to it, yet he can't really understand it nor fully accept it.

This is just my unsubstantiated rant about the film. But it could be a way to see this rather vague film? The very fact that the director chose an English actor as her leading man for her feature debut, and thus making her own country 'the Other' in the dynamic is a telltale sign.

Hamish Considine arrives in Ireland to deal with his deceased Aunt's estate, when he's there he's involved in a serious car accident, an accident that lengthens his stay, enough for him to start asking why he feels a connection to the place.

I don't for The life of me understand some of the negative reviews, this film is far more absorbing and deep than some will have you believe.

This is one of those films that simmers throughout, you'll watch it, expecting some big moment of drama, it's bot really like that, it's a subtle, slow burner, everything is very measured.

The visuals are pretty good, I thought they may have shown a bit more of that incredible scenery, but it does look good.

It had an LGBT tag on it, I don't quite see the connection to be honest, and sexuality is not the purpose of the film, it's a film about discovery, but in a very different area.

I haven't seen much of leading man Cosmo Jarvis if I'm honest, but after this I'll definitely be keeping an eye out, I thought it was an impressive performance, he's repressed, he's angry, he's confused, he's unable to process all of the complex emotions that are suddenly thrust upon him, it's as if his world has been turned upside down, and he's left without the tools to deal with it.

8/10.