Bill Forsyth’s perennially charming crowd-pleaser returns on the occasion of its 40th anniversary. Hotshot executive ‘Mac’ MacIntyre (Peter Riegert), a representative of Knox Oil and Gas, has been dispatched by his crackpot boss, Texan oil magnate and amateur astronomer Felix Happer (Burt Lancaster), to acquire the sleepy fishing village of Ferness in the Scottish Highlands to make way for an incoming refinery. To his surprise, Mac finds the villagers – future millionaires, all – receptive, but the plan is scuppered by the intransigence of a solitary fisherman who refuses to budge from his beach-side shack. As Mac becomes more embedded into village life, he adjusts to the slower-pace and starts to befriend the eccentric residents, especially web-toed marine biologist Marina (Jenny Seagrove), and wily hotelier Urquhart (Denis Lawson), but his burgeoning enchantment is threatened by Happer’s surprise arrival to personally intervene in negotiations.

Notes by David O’Mahony.