The work of Portishead co-founder the musician-producer, this sharp-edged though slight first film turns a sceptical eye on 90s rave culture. Self-serving drug user David (Marc Bessant) first robs an unconscious dealer, then in a later recollection tries to burgle his own parents. In no time, he's overturned in the wreckage of his car in a woodland – and subject to the wrathful eye of the Woodsman (Sleaford Mods frontman Jason Williamson). Declining to free David, with impatience toward city dwellers, he is a fractured society personified: “You’re one of those noisy cunts from up on the heath.”
A Shaky Start and Grimly Amusing Duel
The film begins uncertainly, spending too long on pedantically chronicling David’s attempt to extricate himself from his safety harness, while clumsily segueing into past scenes of his everyday life. The bigger point – that the rave-era youth were mainly focused on themselves – is firmly made. But these vignettes are too thin to properly prime us for what to expect when the Woodsman turns up, enraged after David kills his dog. Nevertheless, a darkly funny standoff unfolds – David eager to get away; the Woodsman withholding his jerrycan of scrumpy, determined to soaking him instead in embittered discourse. Williamson, projecting ponderous menace in the role, is evocative of Michael Smiley.
Visual Flair and Promo-Inspired Sensibility
Just a single key story turn, but it leads to a comically executed rampage on the forest trails that dips close to rural terror. Director John Minton finally gets to go all in with his showy imagery: where he was focused intently doing impressionistic closeups of insects in the light in the opening part, he now lets rip with the full lysergic grand display, accompanied by a wild organ version of Ravel’s Boléro. The movie resembles an extended promo than a fully fledged drama, but there’s enough bold visuals to suggest that Minton could emulate Jonathan Glazer, Garth Jennings and others into making the leap from the Brit music promo scene.
Game releases in British and Irish cinemas from November 17.
