God’s Creatures will hit theaters on Sept. 30, 2022.
For those who enjoy dipping into the drama of small-town stories, God’s Creatures offers a front-row seat to the slow implosion of a rural Irish family made to face the hypocrisies of their insular traditions. Emily Watson as Aileen O’Hara, the family matriarch, personifies that journey from enabler to moral arbiter in regards to a crime committed by her favored adult son, Brian (Paul Mescal). Directors Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer tell a very intimate and observational story that asks us to spend quite some time drinking in the everyday rhythms of this town, its singular fishing industry, and its people, and then uses all of that knowledge to contextualize what unspools because of Brian’s actions. It’s an extremely subtle work, with a pace that will likely annoy some viewers, but there are some profound moments to be found in the climax of the story.
While God’s Creatures takes place in contemporary times, the Irish coastal fishing village might as well be a place suspended in time. Most of the town’s commerce depends on what they catch and can harvest in oysters, so the community matches the ebb and flow of its tides which carries the residents from generation to generation. The people either stay for life like Aileen, her husband, senile father-in-law, and her older daughter, Erin (Toni O’Rourke), or they go far away like her grown prodigal son, Brian, does to Australia. When he suddenly returns, Aileen’s mundane existence lights up as she immediately dotes on him. Whether it’s sneaking him pint money, doing his laundry, or actually stealing oyster bags from work to help him restart their family’s dormant patch of an oyster bed, she’s got no qualms indulging him even when he’s withholding about where he’s been or what he’s been doing his years away.
For the first two-thirds of the movie, Davis and Holmer rely heavily on the unspoken to capture the somber look and mood of this Irish community. Cinematographer Chayse Irvin opens using wide shots that frame the vast vistas of the sea fisheries and the compact footprint of the small town so everything feels distanced. Then the framing gets tighter and more intimate as the events unfold. Composers Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans track that increasing discordance with a violin-heavy score that is moody and a little off-putting. The tapestry of loneliness bleeds into the countenance of all the characters so there’s a palpable sense that there are ghosts haunting these people. That’s not in a literal sense, but metaphorical as we witness the generational broken family dynamics, the casual misogyny from the local men that’s given a blind eye, and the symbols of Catholicism that are omnipresent in their homes. What’s been done continues to be done and it’s accepted.
That is, except when Brian is accused of sexually assaulting Aileen’s current co-worker and his former friend Sarah (Aisling Franciosi). When Aileen’s called by the local police to vouch for Brian’s whereabouts, knowing she was with him at the local bar where she left Brian and Sarah for the night, she doesn’t even blink about lying that he was home all evening. But her devotion to the idea of who she wants Brian to be versus the rude awakening of who he truly is starts to unravel immediately. And then the dominoes of her guilt fall, exposing the sobering truths that come with finally seeing a lifetime of accepted misogyny, violence, and silence come to bear in their insular town. Once the facade breaks, Watson is stunning in her transformation from quiet enabler to ashamed agitator. It’s like witnessing someone’s personal epiphany happening in real time.
Supporting Watson’s central performance is some great work by Mescal, who is enigmatic yet charming as the entitled favorite child who is almost confused by having to take responsibility for anything now that he’s returned. Toni O’Rourke makes much out of her few scenes as Erin, the family rebel who bristles at the town’s stupid supertitions and backwards attitudes she rejects for her newborn son. And Aisling Franciosi is all quiet strength and fortitude as the aggrieved Sarah. Their work as a whole is what sticks with you as God’s Creatures fades to black.
About Post Author
