Movie Review: Far from the Apple Tree

Far from the Apple Tree (In Post) - Scotland - Thriller - NR

Directed by Grant McPhee

Written by Ben Soper

Starring Sorcha Groundsell, Victoria Liddelle, Lynsey-Anne Moffat, Margaret Fraser, Adrienne-Marie Zitt, Scarlett Mack

A tour de force of visual indulgement with more up its sleeve than it lets on.

Attending an art exhibit, Judith not only becomes enthralled with a work, the artist herself takes notice of her. Agreeing to become the artist's archivist and protege to eventually show her own work, she discovers many films and videos of the artist's daughter, perhaps not coincidentally to whom she bears a resemblance... and develops an obsession.

Akin to Grant McPhee's directing style that I first saw in Night Kaleidoscope, the first foray into Far from the Apple Tree is like being dropped into the middle of a situation you don't understand. Your natural survival instinct tells you to get out, yet something compels you to stay. To follow the narrative you have to go into the next room. Perhaps you might not want to, but yet again you're compelled to do it, because you have to know. You may even end up back where you started, momentarily, but that's part of the journey.

Where this story is going to end up is foreseeable. How it's going to get there... well that's a different case entirely, and it's the journey that's the story. Grant doesn't just take the road less traveled, he goes where there was no road and builds one with his narrative. Linear the story is, but pastiches of past, present and who knows when invade each moment onscreen.

Visually, and you don't know how complex that singular term is in relation to this film until you have seen it, there are elements that reminisce of satanic and witchcraft films of the 70s with an austere and muted presence. Elements that hearken to giallo in untransfixed vision underplayed by a melody of a lost childhood. And full of esoterica brimming the lid off of this cauldron of visceral extrapolations. And yet I may have just been describing the passage of only 20 seconds.

A relatively small cast delivers good performances throughout. Sorcha Groundsell as Judith immerses herself in her role and likely will be a rising star soon enough. Victoria Liddelle compounds her role as a character who wafts between impassive and receptive. Her character's intent is not for me to tell but for the viewer to decide.

From my first viewing I was at a solid rating of 4 fingers. The story is complete which alone would have me giving it a 3, and the journey Grant takes us on abrogates the nominal in narrative to traverse its own original path, taking my rating up to 4. It would be nice if things were so simple, huh? A trivial question, so I thought, that I posed to Grant just out of curiosity... well the answer floored me. I shall not reveal what that is, but the performance and production that colluded to carry that out, that takes it up another finger.

My Rating:  5 Fingers. I give it a high five!