God’s Own Country
Director: Francis Lee
Talent: Josh O’Connor, Alec Secareanu, Gemma Jones
Released: September 1st
Johnny Saxby is a twenty-something farmhand, working on his family’s land in the North of England. He lives with his grandmother and father, the latter of whom has been debilitated by a stroke. They communicate little, and when they do speak, they bark at one another belligerently. Johnny is gay, but not openly so. When he does find the opportunity, he has sex anonymously, and without any desire to emotionally connect with his partners (in a symbolic gesture, he turns their heads away from his own, unwilling even to kiss them). Johnny’s swiftly becoming an alcoholic – every morning his face is blanched by a hangover.
This grim cycle is interrupted when migrant worker Gheorghe is hired by Johnny’s father for a week. Taciturn but thoughtful, Gheorghe treats the initially abusive Johnny with a gentle touch, and slowly romance blossoms.
Due to the nature of the plot – first homosexual love-affair on a farmstead – I was dreading a second-rate Brokeback Mountain, only to be very pleasantly surprised. Whereas Brokeback is a high melodrama of sexual repression, Francis Lee’s debut is a minimal and downbeat study in love. Johnny’s self-destructive alienation is a symptom of his directionlessness, not a response to homophobic puritanism in society. It’s not as though homophobia is totally inexistent, but as this is 2017, other social prejudices are present, and mostly exhibited by Johnny: he’s hostile to an old schoolmate because she’s in university and he’s not, and his initial antipathy toward Gheorghe is based on the latter’s Romanian nationality. The considered absence of social commentary is efficient, allowing us to be completely engrossed in the burgeoning romance between the two men.
Strong performances lend this film great weight, and the cinematography is superb. Occasionally I had the sense that the film’s quietness was due to lack of imagination rather than aesthetic choices, but all in all, I can easily recommend the watch.
Words: Tom Lordan
