This atmospheric, hallucinatory drama about youth at risk in small-town Ireland represents an auspicious feature debut for Northern Irish director Aoife McArdle, who brings to the cinema screen the dynamic visual sense she honed through working on celebrated music videos.

Seventeen-year-old Candice (Ann Skelly) lives in a gloomy northern seaside village beset by gang violence, and reeling from the recent disappearance of a young boy; ‘things were a lot safer here during the Troubles’, proclaims her police detective father (John Lynch). A sufferer of chronic epileptic seizures, Candice has recurring visions of enigmatic young Jacob (Ryan Lincoln), a figure both alluring and frightening, who bears a striking resemblance to a member of the vicious local gang, led by Conor (Ryan McParland) and Dermot (Conall Keating).

Notes by David O’Mahony

Classification: 18

Awards
Best Breakthrough Feature, Boston Irish Film Festival 2018