Iona returns to the island where she was born with her teenage son to seek refuge from a violent crime in Glasgow. Iona's return exposes her tormented son, Bull, to a way of life she rejected when she left the island and sends a shockwave through the family she left behind.
UK
UK
From the director of Shell we have another dark film set in a remote part of Scotland that also reels you in. This guy has a style I like.
My hometown hero Douglas Henshall is in it. Here's a guy that I thought would be a megastar after his turn in Oprhans back in the 90s.
And Ruth Negga from Preacher is here too. As is Tom Brooke, but it's Ruth's film and her accent is convincing.
I would welcome more similar films from this guy.
I rather liked Scott Graham's first film Shell and I am quietly impressed by his follow-up film Iona. Iona is a prickly film about faith and forgiveness, about religion in a sparse landscape. It has Ingmar Bergman in Scotland in its bones, though, perhaps without the Swedes lyricism.
However, the potency of the film is hugely increased by Ruth Negga. Negga's performance is exquisitely judged, flawlessly accented, hauntingly distant. She is recovering from a violent relationship, by fleeing to the Scottish island, Iona, where she grew up. She feels at home and at odds with her location and herself, finely modulated between resilience and fragility. Negga is a wonderful actor, who I see is in the next James Gray film,…
The film's a deathly slow, sulking, bleak and joyless experience for the most part but Ruth Negga is such an immense actress in everything she ever does that she completely carries it.
pacing was a little too slow for me but man i'd watch anything starring ruth negga
Scott Graham writes and directs this drama in which a young woman and her son flee to her birthplace, seeking refuge from a violent crime. Starring Ruth Negga, Douglas Henshall and Tom Brooke.
The story concerns a young woman (Ruth Negga) and her young son who go on the run from Glasgow, looking for sanctuary from a ferocious corruption. They journey overnight to her origin, the islet of Iona, after which she is called.
Once there, Iona has no choice but to try to live amid the spiritual public she had put behind her. Their reoccurrence disclosures her anguished son Bull (Ben Gallagher) to a method of life that Iona turned down when she left the island when she was…
Bro what's the deal with all the religion and incest?!?
Slow and moody. I'm nicely under-performed by the mainly young cast (although Ruth Negga looks so young herself it's difficult to see her as a mother, or a love interest for Dougie Henshall - almost 20 years her senior). I've heard this described as Bergman in rural Scottish, and I do admire the way in which the core story of a family on the run from violent criminals find solace in the monastic calm of island life with absolutely no recourse to cheap adrenaline from the seedy side of the story.
i can't tell if i like the actual film but since i've barely seen any films set in scotland i have to give it credit for that and also ruth negga's accent is very convincing
Sparse dialogue.
I read a recent article about Ruth Negga declaring her to be the greatest thing since, well, forever, but I started watching this without having seen her in anything, or knowing she was in it.
Blimey - she is something. Her performance as Iona is never less than compelling. Named after the island where she was born as an outsider when her mother was taken in and accepted by the mainly religious community, now returning as a prodigal daughter after leaving 15 years ago in difficult circumstances, driven by violent events we're not entirely clear about.
There are layers to unpick, and Negga is wonderful at calibrating how much she reveals, in a sparse script that lingers almost equally on…
Oh....
I was really looking forward to this, but ended up totally underwhelmed.
Lots of mysterious side eyes and secrets and awkward silences but practically zero atmosphere. I couldn't care less who was banging who or why in the end, I was just bored.
PS. That ceilidh reminded me of my friends wedding at the Nation Piping Centre in Glasgow... Yaldy!
Even the wonderful Ruth Negga couldn’t save this unfortunately dull and miserable drama in which it more often than not resembled a depressing student film, a real shame because I’m usually a big fan of stripped back and bareboned character studies; at least the landscape visuals were nice to look at for the most part!
