Dark River, 2017.
Directed by Clio Barnard.
Starring Ruth Wilson, Mark Stanley, Sean Bean, and Dean Andrews.
SYNOPSIS:
Alice (Ruth Wilson) returns to the family farm after the death of her father. It’s 15 years since she left, the farm is falling apart and brother Joe (Mark Stanley) is barely managing to keep it going. But when Alice decides to apply for the tenancy, Joe has other plans and the rift between them becomes a chasm.
A regular on last year’s festival circuit, Dark River arrives in cinemas with high expectations, mainly because of its director. Clio Barnard made a name for herself and her uncompromising style with documentary The Arbor (2010) and then searing drama The Selfish Giant (2013). She stays in her native county of Yorkshire for film number three, Dark River, a fiercely emotional drama in a bleakly beautiful rural landscape.
While the setting is crucial, it could also prove to be the movie’s downfall – not that anybody could have known when it was being made. It arrives in the shadows of two other farming dramas – God’s Own Country, also set in Yorkshire, and The Levelling. All things being equal, it should end up on at least an equal footing with the other two, but whether British audiences have an appetite for yet another gritty drama down on the farm remains to be seen.
It is, inevitably, about more than simply farming. The importance of continuity and tradition are to the fore from the outset, represented by the old dresser scattered with family photographs tracing the generations. When Alice explains her reason for applying the tenancy, she explains she wants to get the farm back to the way “Mam and Nanna ran it”. It’s been in the family for several generations at least and the women were the driving force. More recently, run by her father and then her brother, the farm has fallen into a severe decline.
Relationships of all kinds play a significant part: for Ruth, it’s her relationships with men, coupled with the effects of abuse. She’s been away from home for so long that she and her brother are near strangers. Worse still, he resents her return and sees her as such a threat that he won’t discuss anything with her, instead just presenting her with a series of fait accompli. But there’s more lurking underneath his bad temper and fondness for the bottle: the guilt that goes with realising their father (Sean Bean) was abusing Alice when she was a teenager. He haunts both her and the house itself, lurking in her mind before she even arrives home. Her emotional scars won’t allow her to sleep inside the house, let alone venture into her old bedroom, and forming proper relationships of any nature with men don’t come easily to her.
There’s nothing romantic about Barnard’s view of farming. Sheep are dipped and sheared, rabbits are gutted and skins and a dog getting amongst a herd of sheep leaves nothing to the imagination. The weather is harsh, pouring with rain and freezing cold, and the cinematography takes full advantage of the rolling yet unsympathetic landscape. And the two actors at the centre of it all both deliver exemplary performances. Wilson’s Alice is a mass of contradictions: wanting to look forward but in agony over her past, wanting to work with her brother but finding herself fighting him, sometimes physically. Mark Stanley more than rises to the challenge of playing the less sympathetic Joe – dominant and taciturn yet, beneath the surface, pulling himself apart. Despite their many scenes together, the dialogue is sparse, which means they have to make the most of every single word and rely on their eyes and facial expressions to communicate.
Dark River pulls no punches – not that you’d expect anything else from Barnard. Bleak and distressing, it does end on a note of hope – not a rosy glow, but something approaching reconciliation. But, because of the other rural films of the past months, that sense of déjà vu is never far away. It may not be quite as satisfying as it could have been, but this is still another powerful examination of relationships from the most distinctive of rising British directors.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
SEE ALSO: Listen to our exclusive interviews with Clio Barnard, Ruth Wilson and Mark Stanley
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Originally published February 21, 2018. Updated April 11, 2018.
