Sunset song?

A Scottish period drama with a strong female lead and support from the real BBC isn't a bad start for an indie film, and though the drama of life for farmers on the cusp of WWI and the passion of an intellectual and lovely young woman seems a great concept for Sunset Song, it winds up being awful.

Based on the 1932 book of the same name by Scottish author Lewis Grassic Gibbon, the film has the makings of an epic, yet it's a fair bet that his plot and character development is a lot richer than in this big-screen adaptation. Running more than two hours, director Terence Davies (The Deep Blue Sea) had plenty of time to make us fall for the lovable pretense of Chris Guthrie (Agyness Deyn), the farmer's daughter. Instead, the film comes across as a series of time-separated vignettes. A friend in the first scene who happily runs down a forest path with her arms around Chris never appears again. In fact, the main character barely speaks with another woman who is not her mother or her housekeeper for the duration of the story.

Hard-to-watch family interactions that mark the first half of the movie evolve into schmaltzy long kisses and big dreams between Chris and Ewan, an even more shallow character played by Kevin Guthrie (the actor's actual name, not the character). And the strong potential with a supporting role by Ian Pirie (Gangs of New York) is also wasted on a substitute father figure who could have been the key to the narrative but instead becomes another actor delivering long monologues and poorly explained tearful hugs. The dialogue is forced or absent, never natural, and the whole thing is peppered with voiceovers from Deyn that should be poignant and memorable, but sound more like greeting cards or gravestone epitaphs. Viewers don't get an idea of Scotland's role in the war or a better appreciation of the heroine's growing connection to the land. The scenery is sweet, but that's about it.

SUNSET SONG
CCA,
R,
135 min.

Santa Fe Reporter