This film starts with the burning of a barn and ends with the burning of a world.
This is being billed as a folk horror and it’s not. It’s a kitchen sink drama. At the end of harvest, a fire burns down the barn of the benevolent landowner. Master Kent, played by Harry Melling, has gone half-native in this idyllic Scottish village. Even his own manservant, Walt, played by the redoubtable Caleb Landry Jones, has married a local woman and now tills the soil. The breaking apart of their little haven takes place over the course of a week.
The morning after the burning, they come across 3 strangers of their land, darker-skinned and foreign. The villagers fall upon them and put the two men in the stocks and shear the woman’s hair. But is the enemy these outsiders? Or is the enemy among them?
Spoilers! *drumroll* The enemy is the class system.
Caleb Landry Jones gives, as always, a really solid performance, but this film is too long, and feels full of stuffing. There is a lot of dancing around the point, in a way that just felt totally unnecessary and added nothing.