Cannes Review: Emily Watson & Paul Mescal In ‘God’s Creatures’
deadline.comEarly in Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer’s dark and stately God’s Creatures, screening in Directors’ Fortnight here at Cannes, one of the younger women at a wake in an old Irish fishing village declares that her new baby will definitely be learning to swim.
The dead man drowned, a professional risk on the surging waters of the west of Ireland. Even now that the fishing industry has given way to oyster beds suspended in chest-deep water, the farmers wear heavy waders and the worst can happen.
The other women are startled. Swimming lessons? That’s not how things are done around here. Like a gun pulled in a play’s first act, this bit of distaff chat is a clear indicator of where we’re headed; death hovers over every scene that follows, as persistent as the wind that whistles around the single glazing of the workers’ cottages.
Fatalism is a habit of mind; what can you do? “We’re all God’s creatures in the dark,” says one woman morosely. Two stellar performances anchor God’s Creatures, giving both body and soul to a story that could feel thinly predictable in lesser hands.
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