WILDERNESS | FILM REVIEW
Dir: Justin John Doherty (15, 82 mins)
Navel-gazing romance that follows a jazz musician and his lover as they discover that their relationship may not be as idealized as they thought it was. James Barnes, as John, and Katherine Davenport’s Alice seem caught up in a whirlwind of romance. Meeting after a jazz gig, their one-night stand deepens and intensifies, becoming a cloying love affair.
Constantly kissing and cuddling, their relationship is lusty and physical, but do they really know each other, and their ideas of what love is coalesce. The pair go for a romantic weekend away in Cornwall, annoy a man on a beach whose dog steals their picnic, and have an awkward dinner party with friends whose relationship also seems to be rather sticky. The film, scripted by Neil Fox, captures that intense full bloom of first love and then attempts to decipher what happens next.
Filmed on a microbudget by Doherty – part of the teaching staff at Falmouth University School Of Film & Television, where Mark Jenkin who made the excellent Bait also tutors – the film has been a springboard for their students, who have taken on various roles in its creation. It’s well shot, making full use of the Cornish locations, the glorious coastline and cottages, as the couple play cards, walk the beaches and get trapped by the tide – and by their thoughts and opinions of what they are to each other.
This often makes for rather self-indulgent territory as the couple philosophise and examine, often trying the patience of the viewer. Barnes and Davenport fully commit to their roles, but the earnestness and overtly pointed nature of the script gets in their way, making them hard to like. A meandering relationship film that has echoes of the Before Sunrise trilogy, but fails to fully engage.
Out now via VOD
words KEIRON SELF