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****

Dir: Francis Lee (15 104 mins)

A Yorkshire-set love story suffused with lyricism and an absorbing performance from Josh O’Connor. O’Connor plays a farmer’s son, bleakly wandering through the mundanity and brutality of life. His life consists of work, drinking and meaningless sexual encounters. His softness is only glimpsed when left alone with the animals on the farm, all other interactions are torturous including those with his disabled father (Ian Hart) and harsh grandmother (Gemma Jones). His life blossoms however with the arrival of a Romanian farm worker played by Alex Secareanu, they have a connection. The foreign worker is everything O’Connor isn’t and as a result of their interaction the blunted Yorkshire lad starts to transform. All this is beautifully played by the cast, visual poetry propels the film along with director Lee observing small, still moments of affecting drama and creating a very moving rumination on the nature of love.

Opens Sept 1