God's Own Country

The film has now got a wider release in more cinemas:

www.godsowncountry.film/showtimes/

I saw this today. I thought it was lush.
It was slow to start with but in the end I really started to care for the main guys.


The cinema I went to was freezing cold and that really helped set the scene (or so I told myself.)
I didn't see any epilogue? Anyone care to spill?

It's great tht you got a cheap ticket but what about the film? Did you enjoy it?

I found this a beautiful little film. There is a stillness about it, a sparse script, and an absence of an annoying soundtrack which we’ve grown used to, dictating our feelings towards the characters and their situations. Here we are left to make our own judgements. Patrick Wolf’s The Days plays over the closing credits, and we are shown a montage of old films, full of colour, celebrating the farming communities of old, like something out of Merrie England. It’s quite a contrast to what we’ve just seen…

The film depicts the hard lives of farmers in the north of England. The elements are bleak like the landscape. There’s an isolated farmhouse and a dilapidated caravan for the Romanian farmhand who arrives to help out. He gifted like a modern day Gabriel Oak; he will teach sullen warrior Johnny that he needs to stop for a second to appreciate the Beauty which is all too often right under your very nose. Alec Secarenu, unknown to me, plays the gypsy lad (“Please don’t call me that…”); Josh O’Connor, a kind of poor man’s Russell Tovey, and unrecognisable really from his TV role as Lawrence Durrell plays Johnny. Both are superb.

Like other posters, I too remember Gemma Jones from her Duchess of Duke Street days. She crops up in smaller roles now; she was marvellous in Marvellous a few years back, and here she is just as good playing the grandmother doing her best to cope with her ailing son (Ian Hart) and good-for-nothing grandson whose vomit and used condoms she’s in the habit of clearing up.

Never have a few wild daffodils in a jam-jar looked so romantic; never have the words Thank You been uttered with such poignancy; never has a journey to Scotland on a National Express bus seemed a matter of life and death. But it is.

We gradually warm to these unsmiling characters. We’re on their side. We want them to win, as this unusual romance blossoms over- of all things- a Pot Noodle.

I understand that this small scale film has gambolled its way into mainstream cinemas, gaining a much wider audience than it was perhaps intended for. It’s done it quietly, like some of the best things do.

It’s certainly a thing of delicate, brutal beauty.

Stunning performances from all. Josh O'Connor has the air or Frankenstein's monster, who literally has to be taken by the hand and slowly taught how to love - and allow himself to be loved. I've seen it 4 times now, and while that's starting to verge on the obsessive, trust me - it was worth it. Can't recommend this film enough.

Well, I've booked 4 films in succession for today, including this one, which is going to be a rush and tough on my poor posterior. However, all are "free" (included in my prepaid Curzon membership), so a far better use both of my time (while on holiday in Northumberland, I spent all day going to Newcastle and back and managed one film) and resources. I didn't mind paying £6 to see Patti Cakes at a Cineworld but that's about my limit on the occasions when I do have to pay - generally in London. So if God's Own Country doesn't grab me, one or more of the other films probably will.

Well, I loved this film. Beautiful, aching with pain and loneliness and the desperate need for human connection.

It managed to avoid sentimentality and provide a satisfying (open-ended) conclusion.

I thought this was very good. There are some wonderful performances, obviously Josh O' Connor (how different from his louche performance in The Durrells!) and Alec Secareanu but also Gemma Jones was superb and Ian Hart was very moving. Josh, all repressed, inarticulate emotion, gives a fabulous performance and the ending is very touching.

Josh O'Connor has been nominated for a rising star award in the BAFTA's. You can vote!

bit.ly/2CRuldg

Oh excellent! I know what I’m watching tomorrow.

But in poor Merseyside it's nearly £13 too, both at the plush Picturehouse and the bog-standard multiplex by the retail park in the middle of nowhere! That's more than the price of a studio theatre or main house preview ticket!