Review of God’s Creatures

The return of a prodigal son should be a time of thanksgiving and celebration, but sometimes it’s best to stay away. A dysfunctional relationship between mother and son fuels this slow-burning drama from Anna Rose Holmer and Saela Davis, which demands considerable patience from the audience but rewards it with a growing sense of tension. Following up on Holmer’s 2015 the settingsSpeaking of seemingly psychosomatic episodes in an all-female dance troupe, it could hardly be more different in time or space, but this chilling story shares a concern about the price and power of belonging.

Emily Watson plays Aileen O’Hara, a shift manager at a small fish processing plant who happens to be the biggest employer in her one-horse town. She is overjoyed when her son Brian (Paul Mescal) returns from Australia for a funeral and the two sometimes grow uncomfortably close. But when Brian’s demands lead him to compromise first his job and then her morals, Aileen is forced to question the choices she’s made and the price of her devotion to her son.

Fans of Lars von Trier will be struck by some similarities to Watson’s first Oscar-nominated role in breaking waves – a windswept environment, Celtic accents and another moral dilemma, all seen through the penetrating eyes of Watson. But he is grounded in family and community dynamics and examines how these pressures shape us. A mother who would do anything for her children is almost a proverb, but so what? What if that true love pushes you to do the wrong thing? Holmer and Davis, along with their writers Fodhla Cronin O’Reilly and Shane Crowley, eschew easy answers and let their characters breathe the problem.

Watson is grounded and inner as Aileen always is, compelling as a woman of authority whose narrowly circumscribed life falls apart, while Mescal continues to be flawless as the superficial and insensitive Brian. He’s a very ordinary type of freak, the kind of guy who jokes in the pub before ruining lives on the way home. Few members of the cast make a big impression, with the exception of Aisling Franciosi, who relies on her impressive work in The nightingale with a sympathetic touch like one of Aileen’s co-workers.

Shot on 35mm in rain-soaked blues and greens to match the Kerry coast, this film falls into the small-town Irish clichés: a seedy pub, an employer and little to distinguish the modern era from, shall we say, The Banshees of Inisherin. While there are hints of Catholicism, it doesn’t seem specific to any particular religion or country, but something that could happen in any relatively isolated colony. This smallness of place and spirit seems intentional. Make a movie that feels heavy, laden with guilt and pain, but that will stay with you if you can keep up with his slow pace.