Make Up

Neat British drama, I wouldn't class as your normal Loachian kitchen sink locale. The drama takes place in a Cornwall caravan park. The film reminded me of a Cornwall based Daphne du Maurier mystery with its location (obviously) and the psychological drama. The film explores the sexual relationship between a young couple Ruth (Molly Windsor) and Tom (Joseph Quinn). When I think back to this viewing one word comes to mind, suspicion. At first Ruth is suspicious of a possible affair situation with Tom. She discovers hair in the bedding. Not hers or Tom's. As the film develops the suspicion angle switches 360 degrees as Tom suspects Ruth has other loves. Director Claire Oakley brings a suspenseful drama with hints of other types of film with use of haunting location photography, lighting effects and character development. Is Ruth imagining things in her relationships?

They tried to go for some kind of psycho-sexual mystery/thriller but failed miserably. The film is schizophrenic & disjointed in nature; the pay-off is weak & contrived. It reminded me of another movie: Muscle (2019), that also thinks that it's smarter than it actually is. If you want weird but accomplished - i.e. not just weird for the sake of weirdness - then watch something like: Norfolk (2015).

I liked the way that this had fun with various genres, which for a while kept me wondering which way it would go. Also, for those familiar with the "attractions" of the English seaside - very realistic!

This movie is terrible. One hour into film, I still couldn't figure out the plot. It moves as such a slow pace with pointless dialogue and pointless plot points. It never gets any better. I found myself not caring for any of the characters, especially the main character. Avoid this film, it's a complete waste of time and not very entertaining.

I didn't know much about this movie before watching it other than it was filmed a few miles from where I grew up. I feel like the director/writer is going to do great things eventually but this film was lacking for me. I found it visually stunning and each character captivated me on screen. The way the sand dunes/towans, sea and weather showed the internal struggle of Ruth was amazing to me, it's fantastic for a local of the area to see the landscape being used to highlight this to great effect, as some depictions of rural-set movies can stray into stereotype at times. There is a wholly authentic feel to the setting, the people and the awakening Ruth eventually accepted. This is a movie that is hard to label, it does not fit some of the the genres I have seen used in its marketing. This may be refreshing to some and it may well be used as a rather convenient reflection to Ruth's growing realisations about her desires... she may also feel she is flitting between genres herself in terms of sexuality and emotional connections. Desperately realising she is coming out of the jigsaw of gender she thought she may belong and twisting and turning to see where her heart truly lies. At the end curtains are cast open and the sun is appearing. The initial suffocating and disorientating mood created by the sea mists and winter downpours, the non-genre genres, and the clashing sequences of images that may be the past, present or wishful thinking could be seen as a reflection of the growing chaos within Ruth's own heart and mind. Symbolism steals the show leaving little room for anything else. I felt I went on the journey with Ruth, but as the symbolism and metaphors are realised into action/acceptance there does not feel to be that emotional continuation of the journey as has been set up in the movie's earlier parts. The switching genres feels more like a structural device for suggesting an inner struggle that is then discarded once the conflict is resolved leaving the latter part of the movie floundering. Before reading more about the movie I felt this was a very personal story from the director/writer and that it was actually a short movie stretched, unsuccessfully, to a feature length. Wonderful ingredients but the story relies on structural devices and when the story no longer requires these devices it falls down for me.