God's Own Country

The four principals of Francis Lee's film: Josh O'Connor, Alec Secareanu, Gemma Jones, Ian Hart

Atop the Yorkshire moors
There have been several memorable films shot on Yorkshire locations: the TV Brontë biography by Sally Wainwright To Walk Invisible is a recent good example. I have vivid memories of the visceral 2011 Wuthering Heights directed by Andrea Arnold. From childhood there are of course The Railway Children and Kes. There are notable black and white films of This Sporting Life and Billy Liar as well as popular comedies like Brassed Off, Four Lions and The Full Monty. An American Werewolf in London famously started on the moors and A Month in the Country showed parts of North Yorkshire other than the famous rooflines of Castle Howard (Brideshead Revisited.) The moors are hard to capture but a recent cinema trip has done just that – in a stunningly-photographed tale of muddy love among farmers.

Filmed in Yorkshire: Brideshead Revisited, Billy Liar, The Railway Children, Wuthering Heights, An American Werewolf in London, Brassed Off, Four Lions, A Month in the Country, Kes, This Sporting Life, The Full Monty

God’s Own County….
Angry, miserable, tormented Johnny Saxby (Josh O’Connor) lives with his stroke-stricken Dad, farmer Martin (Ian Hart) and gritty grandmother, Deirdre (Gemma Jones). They struggle to “manage” even though Johnny shouts “I’ll manage” time and again. The family have a broken past and are clinging to their beasts and their land in the hope of making a living. Their lives endure, despite illness and scraping their pennies together. For one week only, Martin brings in the gentle, capable Romanian migrant, Gheorghe (Alex Secareanu) to help Johnny with the lambing – in the hope that Martin himself will be back on the farm before too long. You hope Martin will recover because it becomes obvious that not many people would want to graft such unsociable hours in such conditions; Gheorghe was “the only bugger who applied.” Thankfully, the film suggests, Gheorghe’s less rigid thinking might mean the farm will diversify after the credits roll and maybe survive Brexit.

Francis Lee, director, with cast and producer Manon Ardisson at the Edinburgh Film Festival and cinematographer Joshua James Richards on location in Yorkshire

Believable (grunting) masculinity
There was plenty to talk about after watching the film: in particular, how much sympathy does Johnny deserve given his frequent alcohol-induced vomiting, emotionless shagging and his thuggish refusal to say anything positive to the people who were making an effort to connect with him? (Patsy Ferran’s university friend, Robyn, gave a poignant hint of Johnny’s potential in the eyes of his old school friends)  I felt that Josh O’Connor’s performance was a pitch-perfect portrayal of an emotionally stunted man – and, for me, the film’s depiction of his agonising steps to a better way of being was one of the most moving things I’ve seen in cinema for ages. And all against the background of the Yorkshire moors!

He’s just going to be a runt
The rest of the actors were equally believable in their characterisations: Alex Secareanu played Gheorghe with integrity and magnetism. Gemma Jones and Ian Hart inhabited their steadfast roles with raw naturalism. I don’t want to include any spoilers but those who’ve seen it will know what I mean when I say Deirdre’s laundry/ironing scenes and Martin’s bath-time scene displayed acting skills of the highest order. The poster gives away that the film becomes a love story between Johnny and Gheorghe and their relationship drives the film’s plot, but the unfussy visual symbols (the white trail of an aeroplane, hands, gloves, jumpers/skin, clothes or lack of them, food, milk/cheese, spit, vomit, blood, mud, water, stone, walls, fences, doors, lambs, flowers, the fragility of living things) meant the film operated on a sweeping landscape bigger than two men in love. Sometimes you can’t let a runt fail…. people, like premature lambs, deserve a chance to live a life. They might only need a new coat (or jumper) –  I know this to be true, both from my years of teaching and from life’s bruises. Congratulations to the director, Francis Lee, local lad, for creating a celluloid work of art. And hats off to cinematographer, Joshua James Richards, for capturing the bleak beauty of what is, in my view, a universalised Yorkshire story with a beating heart.