A mother's love can make her oblivious to the true nature of her children, causing a life that once appeared to be so steady to come to an end. Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer's film God's Creatures begins with a death: a son has perished in the waters that lap at the edge of an Irish fishing community. The local legend that he never learned to swim was passed down to deter the youth of the community from diving into the sea to assist someone who was drowning. God's Creatures starts out like this before developing into a spooky rural gothic tale with two quietly furious performances that make the lengthy build-up to the film's finale worthwhile.

Brian O'Hara (Paul Mescal) makes his triumphant return home after a ten-year trip to Australia, where he didn't care to remain in touch with the family he left behind. He does so at the wake of the recently departed son. One member of that family, Aileen (Emily Watson), is delighted to see him again. Her grief-masked expression is beginning to fade as she reacts in amazement to Brian's unexpected but welcoming reappearance. While Brian and his mother fall into a routine up until Sarah Murphy accuses him of assault, Brian's father Con (Declan Conlon) and sister Erin (Toni O'Rourke) have considerably more complicated views about his return (Aisling Franciosi).

The relationship between Mescal and Watson is unsettling, and God's Creatures takes its time to ensure that it works for Brian and Aileen. They look out for one another. It is evident in the way he lowers the boat's side as she enters the water and in the way she cheerfully pays for his drinks at the neighbourhood bar. But because it comes naturally to her, Aileen is just as protective of her kid as she is of her neighbourhood. She defends her coworkers at the neighbourhood fisheries when their tyrannical supervisor wrongly reprimands one of them. However, the decision is obvious when she is forced to choose between her family and her community.

God's Creatures demonstrates how love can produce delusion with disastrous results. There are no simple solutions in God's Creatures save for the one that matters, which is emphasised by the cyclical nature of familial ties that spread out into a small community. Other responses become bogged down in the hazy area between morality and loyalty, which may not be satisfying to everyone but is ultimately more honest than anything that would seek the truth on either side.
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G GOWTHAM

09/10/2022 01:09 PM