Dark River

This is a movie with a deep emotional realistic story.....so that means a very depressing, slow, well acted film. Two siblings have to reconnect on a family farm in order to move forward in their lives......replay value for entertainment sake doesn't exist in this film.

The story was ok overall, but was really slow moving and takes a long time to develop or for the viewer to understand the complexities of what's going on through the flashbacks.

"Dark River" is an entirely humorless film. If you're in an entirely humorless mood, you might appreciate it. It also features a large cast of sheep who don't appear very happy. In rural England, Alice (Ruth Wilson) is a sheep shearer who receives news that her father has passed and has left her the tenancy of the sheep farm where she grew up. She returns there and encounters her estranged brother Joe (Mark Stanley), who has let the place run down badly. The place needs a ton of work. Thinking that she is now the tenancy holder, she tries to get the place in shape, hoping that she and Joe can work it together. But Joe is obstinate about doing things his own way, and he doesn't want her help. After all, she has been gone for years and didn't even attend her father's funeral. Alice and Joe's relationship is tempestuous, sometimes to the point of violence. Why the family conflict? We learn in short flashbacks that Alice was sexually abused by her father (Sean Bean). Alice keeps having visions of her traumatic past, which raises the question: Why does she return to this place? Catharsis? The question is not answered. Another question is, did Joe know about the abuse? The answer is eventually revealed over an hour into the film. Joe is awarded tenancy, we guess because he stayed on the farm all of those years and the landowner probably favored him over Alice. This, of course, ramps up the resentment. But the real reason Joe gets tenancy is that he has agreed to sell the land to developers. This is pretty much a plotless movie. Its attributes include gorgeous shots of the British countryside and committed performances from Wilson and Stanley. But the angst is overwhelming. There are many scenes that are pregnant with silence and discomfort. Seventy minutes in, I was wondering where it was all going to go. Surely, I thought, there must be a plot twist coming, or a narrative turn of some kind. It comes in the final act. I found it pretty hard to swallow. But this movie is not about logic or normalcy. It's pure, hand-wringing melodrama, the kind that film festival judges love.

It's a rural, personal and slowly intense little indie with some exceptional acting from Ruth Wilson.

This movie made a rare, understated, yet powerful statement about the impact of paternal sexual abuse on not just the victim, but her sibling and their relationship. The psychological, social-political, economic, and even environmental issues raised were both literally and symbolically conveyed, making a deeply intelligent and even original statement about a painfully complex topic.

I thought this film was excellent. Ruth Wilson, what can I say. She gave a performance so raw and explosive under the surface of a young woman trying to find her way after a brutal chaotic childhood. The beauty of the landscape hides a life full of trauma. Wow, just wow.

It was a good film all the way through until 15 minutes at the end when the screenwriter either had smoked a joint or ran out of creative ideas. A lot of potentially good films are spoiled because the writer runs out of proper ideas and the ending finalises with an unsasfactory ending such as this. It's a great shame.

Pointless waste of time. Dialogue is difficult to understand. The storyline is predictable and boring.

Alice played superbly by Ruth Wilson returns to the farm she left 15 years ago to escape the abusive attentions of her father. Her father having died in her absence, has left her the farm holdings in his will, much to the resentment of her brother who cared for both their father in his dying days and the farm in her absence. So begins an unbearably tense film as tension and resentment grows between the siblings as they fight for control of the farm, eventually leading to a tragic ending. It's a bleak film but worth the pay off with outstanding performances from the cast. Not one you call enjoyable but certainly memorable for some time after viewing.

A movie with obvious talent but a lot of unfulfilled potential, Dark River looked great, and reminded me how beautiful and unique the English countryside is, but the story never comes close to being satisfying or involving. We've seen siblings fighting in movies before, but rarely has it felt so weightless and lethargic. Segments of dialogue are unintelligible due to them being muttered in heavy accents, and the words you can hear just aren't very interesting. It's the kind of film where characters rarely say what they're feeling, but the director is unable to effectively convey their inner torment. The flashbacks, which are supposed to illuminate the past, quickly become irritating, and one simple conversation could have covered all of them sufficiently. It jumps around erratically, never keeping focus or allowing us to digest what is happening. It could have been great, a family drama focusing on an intense rivalry between 2 estranged siblings fighting for the last thing they have. Instead it feels more like 2 grumpy children bickering over their favourite toy. There was a lot it could have done, and a lot it could have said, but it chose to do very little, and say even less.