Joanne Froggatt turns in an exceptional performance in this bleakly realistic and tightly observed look at life for a woman soldier and the stark challenges of familial reintegration she faces in the wake of returning home from war. That difficult process isn't aided by the fact that her soldier husband (an intense, unforgettable Mel Raido) is a fully-fledged psychopath who speaks viciously of the enjoyment he derives from killing Muslims.
The spartan, unsympathetic monotony of existence on a drab and humdrum Middlesbrough council estate is used very effectively by talented young director Brian Welsh to convey and ferment the sense of dislocation and uncertainty that grows in the mind of this young returned servicewoman.
The film and its central performance is all the more powerful for not coming down and offering a take on the rights and wrongs of engaging in distant conflicts. The war-zone she has nightmares of is a hazy and fuzzily indistinct recollection and this aids the film's general sense of uncertainty. Froggatt's Suzy is a simple woman who did a job for those more powerful than her and afterwards came home. It is a haunting performance that marks the film indelibly into one's mind. Although the film wanders into perhaps somewhat misjudged thriller territory late on, the performance remains and is the abiding element that makes this an important and compelling study of trauma and post-conflict existence.
The spartan, unsympathetic monotony of existence on a drab and humdrum Middlesbrough council estate is used very effectively by talented young director Brian Welsh to convey and ferment the sense of dislocation and uncertainty that grows in the mind of this young returned servicewoman.
The film and its central performance is all the more powerful for not coming down and offering a take on the rights and wrongs of engaging in distant conflicts. The war-zone she has nightmares of is a hazy and fuzzily indistinct recollection and this aids the film's general sense of uncertainty. Froggatt's Suzy is a simple woman who did a job for those more powerful than her and afterwards came home. It is a haunting performance that marks the film indelibly into one's mind. Although the film wanders into perhaps somewhat misjudged thriller territory late on, the performance remains and is the abiding element that makes this an important and compelling study of trauma and post-conflict existence.