It Is in Us All

'It is in us all' is not a satisfying watch. It has all the look and self-importance to become a very serious art-house deep dive into a human psychology... or something -from the mysterious characters to sweeping wide shots of the landscapes to an extended scene that nearly amounts to body-horror. I sat there and waited something to happen, to go deeper, perhaps even dark. It didn't. It's all misty to the end.

But at least it made me think about one aspect, which the director may never have intended and I may have totally blown out of proportion, but... I find the dynamic of Anglo-Irish relationship featured in the film rather interesting.

For many British (especially English), Ireland remains something blurry back in their mind. A kind of a little brother figure, still feels like a forgotten part of their nation, somewhere they can always visit and impose themselves on but nowhere they particularly want to be anyway. This attitude you can picke up from Hamish's English father. For him, Ireland is just a backwater, and the difficult relationship of the past (represented by his failed marriage to Hamish's Irish mother) is just water under the bridge. In other word, it's just not worth putting much thought to.

On the other hand, the Irish response to the English visitor is a complex mixture of curiosity, fascination, and veiled suspicion. One moment very friendly, but just below the surface there's hostility that runs deep from their acrimonious past relationship.

Hamish, half Englsih half Irish, sits right between these 2 clashing dynamics, and eventually breaks down in the subtle but unbridgeable gap. He arrivs Ireland first as a totally unsympathetic stranger. Even the fatal car accident doesn't seem to stir him much, and he seems to take it as just something happened. Only when he realises the forgotten Irish root, he finally looks around. He's inexplicably attracted to it, yet he can't really understand it nor fully accept it.

This is just my unsubstantiated rant about the film. But it could be a way to see this rather vague film? The very fact that the director chose an English actor as her leading man for her feature debut, and thus making her own country 'the Other' in the dynamic is a telltale sign.

Hamish has a full head on collision, not his fault, but could have moved with more precision, leaves him with a broken arm, he later fixes with alarm, and some gaffa tape with very high adhesion. He's in Ireland to sell off his dead Aunt's home, while he's there he gets to wander and to roam, meeting up with some young guys, whose car crash friend instantly died, he seems to be in some lost world that's full of gloam.

Not even the exceptionally talented Cosmo Jarvis can raise this slow burn from its dying embers as he portrays a person you will find it difficult to align your own reality with and find any common ground.

There is something unique about this movie. A story which begins with an act of violence and ends with an act of violence, with so much aching tenderness, and barely contained emotion between. There was enough feeling in this to fill 5 films. Sit back into the rain soaked landscapes of Donegal and the atmospheric soundscapes. The sets are equally atmospheric and spartan. The costumes were sensual and deepened your intimacy with the characters. Cosmo Jarvis is a joy to watch. His ability to coax you deep into his storytelling is irresistible. And I will be seeking out and watching anything by the writer and director Antonia Campbell-Hughes. Masterful film making.

Cosmo Jarvis personally a big fan of him.

Loved him in Calm with horses and his character in this had some great potential to push his acting chops to another level but sadly this was abit of a let down.

I am seriously still scratching my head as to what I have just watched...??????😒🤔

The film's plot was convoluted and nothing really happens to help the flow of the film its just abit strange. The relationships in the film are just odd and tedious.

Although thought provoking, dark, tense which are all good points sadly the plot made very little sense even right until the conclusion and the story throughout was just ambiguous and very confusing.

I really wanted to like this but was sadly left with a feeling of delirium to be honest.

The description of the film was strange and puzzling to me: "a sexually charged boy". Was the film pornographic in nature featuring an underaged male participant? I wasn't intrigued by that but decided to watch in order to disprove or better understand why it was phrased in such a way, especially when it is described as including LGBT representation, when being LGBT is again increasing in demonization and oversexualization by some. I am so glad I watched this film in any case.

The film is set in Ireland, mostly in the countryside, so naturally the cinematography included sweeping shots reflecting the mood of bemusement and extended grief both the main characters and others were experiencing, from past and current tragedies. It's nothing new in direction to use landscape as representative of emotion or even as a protagonist itself. Hamish Considine, the lead character, is visiting to settle the home and visit the graveside of an aunt when he's involved in a car accident. His connection to his mother and family has been troubled for several reasons, and this is his first impression of a place he is "from" but never lived.

Others have asked how is this LGBT representative when they felt there was no overt discussions or references to sexuality, yet that shows are over reliance on stereotypes, often used by CIS heterosexual directors as interpretations of LGBT people. They may be dependent on overt sexual behaviors to "safely" decide, "Oh yeah, he or she is gay, trans" or anything else so they can stay in their "comfort zone", as it were, of labeling and compartmentalizing others so they can define (or hide) their own identities, attractions or prejudices. Yet like intelligence, sexuality is on a spectrum.

From the first scene, Hamish, played by Cosmo Jarvis with great skill and in all his mumbling glory (subtitles highly suggested especially if you're not familiar with Irish accents in general), I immediately sensed someone of probable non-heteronormative reality even if he had not made it carefully but respectfully clear to a female secretary or receptionist at the start of the film that he was not interested in her flirtations in the slightest.

The "sexually charged boy" is seventeen year old "Evan", the lone survivor of the other vehicle involved in the crash, well-played by Rhys Mannion in representing the simmering desires, frustrations, attractions and love/hate quality for his life, location, and loves as any teenager might have, whether gay, straight, transgender or anything else. But which more often results in abuse, misunderstanding and ostracization, whether community or self-imposed for LGBT youth. In turn, some develop fixations, such as with death and dying, or in manipulations to establish control over others when feeling one has little control over one's own life.

Young Evan soon attaches himself to Hamish who perhaps represents freedom, success and the "outside" world, of another possible life, but also as an accessory in covering up a critical detail of the crash. Was it an accident or a decision Hamish accidentally interrupted? Hamish in return, shows a desire for connection, of protection, of helping a young man in whom he saw himself when younger, as he might have been had he grown up in Ireland instead of England, where his mother took him.

In Hamish's interactions with others, and then later with Evan and Hamish together talking to the same people, you can see the pointedly ignored or casually observed acknowledgement of the attraction betwen the two whether Hamish admits it or not. And the townspeople, of course, know more about Evan than the newly met Hamish. Particularly, with men, the priest, the shopkeeper, the barman, there's always a careful gauging of Hamish's reactions to revealed information, secrets, both past and present. About Hamish's own family and Evan and the group of boys he is introduced to, and which Evan is the leader of. There is symbolism, and several scenes and dialogues obviously suggesting diversity of attraction and past behavior.

In the end, I think the "sexually charged" description was heavy-handed and unnecessary, causing misunderstanding of what would be shown, when I found this to be a beautifully shot film with nothing subtle in the suggested explorations, the budding desires and dreams of young men who want to be and do more than what is "acceptable", but who still have love of the land and history of where they are from. That could be Ireland or anywhere. So absolutely, the title is apt, "It is in Us All".

Sexuality was only one facet in the relationship of Evan and others, between Hamish and Evan, and why Hamish allowed himself to continue with Evan while he dealt with his own grief and history. I found it to be an excellent representation and example of how an older and younger man may have an attraction to each other, for various reasons, but wisely, carefully, the more mature man takes that age difference seriously, and respects the need for the underage person to experience and explore appropriately in their own way, in their own time.

I found the film gorgeous, and the story heartbreaking and courageous at the same time. An excellent directorial debut with an ending you won't see coming. Highly recommended.