REVIEW - THE SELFISH GIANT

Though it rather strictly follows the narrative lines you predict of it, Clio Barnard's The Selfish Giant is a stunning film, reaching a degree of emotional impact that is truly stirring. Just as there is a place for politically-charged social realism, there is a place for this more passive style, whose deeper significance, if there is any, is ambiguous and left to the discernment of the individual viewer, and is determined purely by the humanistic strength of the material, which is truly momentous in the case of The Selfish Giant. Stylistically unambitious, Barnard's film strives instead to provide an impression of life in rural, even poverty-stricken Yorkshire that is authentic and visceral. Her task is minute in some respects, but vast in others... well, it's hard to deduce where Barnard's touch as director, or as writer, or the sheer talent of the cast each begin and end, but the work they achieve in collaboration is immense. So convincing are these performances that it's a genuine struggle to imagine the actors leading lives in the real world, and so keenly, beautifully adroit is Barnard's depiction of life in this run-down corner of northern England, like so many others, that one feels an immediate, and profound connection to it, as though we not only were there in the moment, but had been there all our lives, and developed that connection since birth. It hardly matters where Barnard takes these people from here on out - and indeed she falls back on storytelling custom at every juncture - as it is not the specifics of what happens that bears most magnitude, but the effects of what happens, and what we, and the characters, are put through in the process. The final 20 minutes are as powerful as they come.