In Yorkshire, Donald (Byrne) is a driver for shady tycoon Demi (Keitel), who asks him to discreetly clear out a lavish apartment he maintained for his young Muslim mistress Amber (Deen). With his wife (McKee) divorcing him, Donald lives with his brother-in-law Billy (Addy) and makes wine in his spare time. He also takes an interest in Amber's wellbeing. But this drags him into her messy past, when she was married to hotshot mobster KD (Uddin), who now wants to marry Amber's teen sister Miriam (Johnson).

Director Misra develops an overtly emotive tone from the start, playing up the character interaction without really defining how these people are connected. The cast is excellent, but without any context or narrative coherence, it's impossible for us to connect with anyone or even to work out who they are. Scenes are intriguing simply because they're shot and played in colourful ways, but it's impossible to engage with anyone or anything. Which means there's no suspense at all, which of course is a serious problem for a thriller.

Byrne anchors the film nicely as the calm, understated Donald, who is clearly concealing some deep emotional scars (they reveal themselves later). Deen is solid as the most intriguing person on-screen, but the details about Amber's earlier experiences are far too sketchy to properly bring her to life. This leaves her family's drama feeling preachy and obvious, using the important religious/cultural issues as part of a contrived narrative. As a result, the other characters are merely one-note.

With undefined details in virtually every scene, watching this film feels like coming into a soapy TV series halfway through the season. Questions arise constantly relating to the past, and yet we haven't a clue how we should feel about what's happening. So we end up hanging on the throwaway scenes, which are nicely shot and played but tangential. And as things begin to come together, the movie becomes increasingly melodramatic, spending more time on social issues and uninvolving sideplots than the central characters.

themes, language, violence

24.Jan.18