Dark River

From the united kingdom.. when kate hears her dad has died, she returns to the family tenancy to fix it up and run it properly. Problem is, her brother, who has worked it with dad for years, wants to run it himself. To top it all off, there are dark family secrets that still have to be worked out. Other reviewers have used the word bleak, and some of it is tough to watch. Those who enjoy hallmark films probably won't like how deep and dark this gets. And sometimes when we're seeing flashbacks, it takes a while to realize we're in the flashback, which is annoying. But the acting and the story are topnotch. There is another scene where we watch kate gut a rabbit she has caught for dinner... that might be hard for some to watch. Can brother and sister get past their own family history and run the farm togther? It's a great film, but there are some very dark moments in this one. Directed by clio barnard, who has been nominated for two Baftas. Film based on the novel by rose tremain. This one has been remade several times, so it must be a good story!

Ruth Wilson carries this film in devastating fashion, through the dark, cold, windy, and disorientating farmland of northern England, where sister and brother vie for tenancy of their deceased father's land. With the menace of Winter's Bone and the tragic tone of Tim Roth's War Zone, the pain of an abused - an emotional cripple trying to forge through the trauma that transcends past and present - has never been made more precipitant than in Dark River. Words ring harsh, blows and falls are felt - this is one that lives you feeling wounded. Precede at your own risk.

It's a sad story of family trauma and an attempt to go home many years later. The photography is superb. The acting is powerful. It works very well as a film overall. I don't want to say any more at the risk of spoiling it for you if you haven't yet seen it but it is well worth watching.

As for the negative reviews, I suggest you ignore them. This was never intended to be a super-hero action movie. It's a drama and it does what it sets out to do very well.

If it had a better script, a better telling of the story and a better director this could have been a great film, instead it is just a farming fighting siblings plod along, sometimes hard to understand the accents, and with a lot of films that don't actually tell you what going to happen, but you can sort of work it out, well with this there is no working out, the whole story line is flawed, and there is not enough dialogue to help you understand the full story. Shame really Ruth Wilson does a fantastic job, if one did not know better she could have been that person, and not a film star, the rest of the cast did what they had to do with such a bad script...........Great scenery, mostly filmed i think in North Yorkshire.

This gets right down into the roots of northern farming. A great cast and exceptional performances from Ruth Wilson and Mark Stanley, who play siblings at loggerheads.

The film itself is quite dark. Everyday is pretty much grey and dull to fit the mood for the film. It's filmed beautifully, exactly what you would expect in the lovely northern countryside.

I really enjoyed the story, I felt it got deep down into a family feud that included abuse and regret. Very well written.