Another impressive feature debut from a young film-maker previously known for some excellent shorts, Puppy is an intriguing psychodrama-cum-oddball romance from the Irish-born director Kieran Galvin. This tale of a delusional young man who kidnaps a suicidal
female has echoes of The Collector and Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down. Liz (Nadia Townsend) tries to gas herself in a car park after being thrown out by her sister. She’s rescued by truck driver Aiden (Daniel Curry), a camerawielding weirdo who pulls her from the fumes, bundles her up and takes her back to his isolated rural home. A strange and complex relationship develops between captor and captive,
and Galvin defies genre conventions by springing a number of startling surprises that question who, if anyone, is the victim. ‘I really love playing with the morality and seeing if one can get away with it,’ says Galvin. ‘If audiences share the journey and accept the ending ——where largely unchanged characters are redeemed just by us knowing why they did certain things —— then I feel that the story succeeds.’

Short film beforehand:
APPLE
(Dir: Megan Gardiner. 2005. 17 min.)