WHAT I LIKED: Francis Lee's 'God's Own Country,' is a masterful portrait of pent-up loneliness and frustration which follows a depressed farmer's son in Yorkshire finding some human connection with a new worker on the farm. We open up seeing the central character Johnny be sick, do errands on the farm and go out to the local pub on his own - all with the same blank, lost, angry demeanor of someone with little to live for. He virtually ignores his family (who themselves are hardly bursting with love and conversation) and has more meaningful interaction with sheep and cows than fellow human beings.
That is until Gheorghe arrives on the farm. He's met with Johnny's usual hostility to begin with, but that eventually turns into something else as the pair spend time together. It's not a joyous, blossoming romance though; Johnny doesn't know how to show his feelings, and initially lets them out through anger and frustration for Gheorghe to slowly pick away his layers.
It's a fascinating, universal story all about learning to allow oneself to be happy and express emotion, but what makes it so affecting is how much Lee leaves to physicality rather than dialogue. The spoken script for the film can't have been more than a couple of pages long - instead it's brilliantly left to expressions and mannerisms to portray what the characters are feeling. That's helped of course by the fact that the two central performances rise to that challenge, as Josh O'Connor does an amazing job of selling Johnny's pent-up feelings and torment just through the way he walks and holds himself - and through how powerful it is for him to release those feelings through even a simple touch or kiss - and Alec Secareanu does a similarly great job of showing his character understands that behaviour.
But on top of the performances, what also makes it such a physical film is that the landscape around the pair is brought to life so powerfully. The sound of the howling wind and the distant lowing of cows, the back-breaking intensity of the farm work, and the breathtaking expanse of the landscape all adds to the sense of claustrophobia and cavernous loneliness that Johnny is feeling. It's ultimately just such a sensual and physical film to behold, and that kind of cinema which leaves the camera, the performances and the sound design to do the work is often the most powerful.
WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: It's about as unsentimental as films get, and the fact that the emotion is so (intentionally) guarded for the majority means there are no moments which stray into the realms of the profound.
VERDICT: A masterfully physical portrait of a lonely, isolated, emotionally-stunted soul slowly unraveling himself through romance, 'God's Own Country,' proves writer/director Francis Lee is definitely one to watch.
