This is the only film by the talented actor Tim Roth, who, throughout his career, has been equally productive to work both in the field of entertainment cinema and in the "art house". But, apparently, the category “other cinema” is nevertheless closer to him, because his directorial debut can be safely put on the shelf with films “not for everyone”. At first glance, this is a depressing social drama about a very difficult relationship in a single family. From the point of view of directing, the work turned out to be serious, mature, as well as the topics covered in it: incest, misunderstanding between family members and eternal fear. Usually we turn away from this, experiencing something akin to inconvenience and, at the same time, disgust, which, however, does not solve the problem itself and does not make it less visible. We do not know what Tim Roth wanted to say with this film, but the dedication that appears in the credits to "father" looks very strange.
We can only hope that this has nothing to do with Roth's past. Unlike many of his colleagues, he preferred to confine himself only to directorial functions and did not star in the film himself.
The obvious pluses of the film include the amazing "atmosphere" of what is happening, created thanks to the first-class camera work of Seamus McGarvey, and especially the way the landscape is chosen organically in relation to the action - everything is so gray and dull that the right mood is created instantly.
In 1999, the film collected a whole bunch of international awards of varying degrees of fame: it became the winner, according to the European Film Academy, in the category "European Discovery of the Year". At the Berlin Film Festival (Prize of the European Confederation of Feature Films in the Panorama program), he received the British Independent Film Prize awarded to aspiring actress Lara Belmont, the Best British Film Award at the Edinburgh IFF, and a silver prize at the Valladolid IFF. In a word, the fate of Roth's film at the festival turned out to be much more successful than the distribution fate. However, it is unlikely that Tim initially claimed to be massive and box-office success - such a movie is not being shot for this.
