Filled with hard hitting emotional beats that kick on right at the midway point, and once it gets there, Gods Creatures moves into another gear.
BY ELLIOT LINES MARCH 22, 2023
Recently we have been blessed with a bleak story set on a small remote Irish village. For the past few months due to it's award prowess, The Banshees of Inisherin can now it can step aside for another Irish treat. Gods Creatures is a dark tale that homes in on the fracturing of relationships when competing against a guilty conscience.
Settled on a small remote fishing village, Aileen (Emily Watson) is working as a shift manager at the local seafood plant. When her estranged son Brian (Paul Mescal) unexpectedly returns from Australia. After a night at the pub with her son where she leaves him with an romance Sarah (Aisling Franciosi) from his past. Aileen is informed that a sexual assault claim has been made against Brian, but she lies and provides him with an alibi of his whereabouts. When Sarah starts to skip shifts at work and Aileen then lies in court, the tight-nit community and Aileen's family starts to tear apart and she is torn between protecting her son or doing the right thing.
Gods Creatures is a grand piece of storytelling that really digs into the dark depths of the story it is trying to tell. The first half shows you the joy someone can bring, just by returning after a long while away. Aileen is ecstatic with the return of her son, but by the midpoint this story shows that those emotions can be short lived. It's at this point that halfway point that Aileen lies about Brian's whereabouts, and from here on in, all the way to the final scene, the emotion is intense and doesn't fail to hit hard
Emily Watson performance is outstanding, creating genuine emotion between each other character she comes up against. Aileen and Sarah's fractured relationship is just as important to this story as Aileen and Brian's once we get deeper into this. Between Watson, Franciosi and Mescal they sell the break down in these respective relationships, forming the bleak and dark cloud over the latter half.
The subject matter will certainly not be for everyone. But the story it is telling is extremely well told, accompanied by some terrific performances from Watson, Mescal and Franciosi. It is filled with hard hitting emotional beats that kick on right at the midway point, and once it gets there, Gods Creatures moves into another gear.
STAR RATING
