Glenrothan is Brian Cox’s directorial debut and I wish there were a nicer way of putting it but, Brian: please, please, don’t give up the day job. The screenplay, meanwhile, is by David Ashton, whose only previous film credit seems to be Freddie as F.R.O.7 (1992), a James Bond spoof starring a six foot animated frog voiced by Ben Kingsley. (‘Toadally awful’ is the first comment on IMDb.)
The only thing that might actually make you laugh is the foreshadowing
The film stars Cox and Alex Cumming as estranged brothers Sandy and Donal and here’s what you need to know about the pair: 40 years ago Donal left Sandy and the family business (a whisky distillery in Glenrothan) for America and hasn’t been in touch since. He ended up owning and running a jazz club in Chicago but then it burned to the ground. When everyone keeps telling him ‘that’s OK, the place is insured’, you know it isn’t. (The foreshadowing is not subtle.) Donal’s daughter Amy (Alexandra Shipp), who returns to see Uncle Sandy every year, persuades him to join her. In case you were worried how they made it from Chicago to Scotland we cut to a plane in the air. Cox is wonderfully literal.
This is the biscuit-tin version of Scotland, and the Highlands are admittedly beautiful – no drone has ever worked as hard. They are picked up from the airport by Jess (Shirley Henderson), the girl Donal left behind, and as they’re driving he has some advice for Amy. ‘Be careful with time,’ he says. ‘It creeps up on you.’ Cox and Cumming are both seasoned actors so why they didn’t throw the script on the fire, I don’t know. Maybe they loved F.R.O.7. Maybe it was toadally great in their opinion.
At no point does either brother show any curiosity as to what has happened to the other over the past four decades. Instead, they circle each other warily, while Cumming is often left to stare melancholically into the middle-distance. Sometimes Amy has to give him a pep talk of the expository kind: ‘He’s your brother! He doesn’t have any kids! Just a distillery!’ Still, I admired Cox’s pale blue knitted cardigan. And his tweeds.
The narrative propulsion, such as it is, comes from wanting to know why the brothers – who you have to believe were born nearly 20 years apart – fell out. The only thing I didn’t predict was how shockingly underwhelming the reason proves to be. Plus, it’s one of those things that could have easily been discussed and resolved years ago.
At one point Donal makes some awful porridge. That counts as comedy in this film. The only thing that might actually make you laugh is the foreshadowing. The Triumph motorbike that Sandy has kept in pristine condition for Donal: might we see them ride that together one day? The film is so predictable you can see what’s coming from a mile off, maybe two, maybe even from outer space.
Cox and Cumming can’t save it. Neither can Henderson. It’s almost painful how flimsy the characters are, how familiar all the emotional beats. It has the feel of a Sunday evening TV show you might doze through – Monarch of the Glenrothan. On the plus side, the knitwear is nice, the scenery delightful, and it is only 95 minutes. If we were solely considering running time I would award it five stars.
Comments