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Based on Helen Cross’s novel, Pawel Pawlikowsky’s high-def coming-of-age film is set in an anonymous Yorkshire town. The story is fairy-tale simple: working-class Mona (Nathalie Press) meets bohemian Tamsin (Emily Blunt) and an infatuation blossoms. Mona’s ex-con brother, Phil (Paddy Considine), is a religious fanatic; Tamsin’s father is a philanderer and her sister Sadie is dead. Mona naively and willingly escapes to Tamsin’s ivy-covered estate, where holding séances, discussing Nietzsche over hashish, and swimming nude in cold streams fill the days until a confrontation with Phil persuades Mona to leave town with her new lover. The film’s final minutes wane predictably, but the journey there is funny and steamy thanks to unnervingly good performances by Press and Blunt. Ryszard Lenczewski’s photography captures the moors in pinks and golds, crafting a dreamy northern landscape that is both beautiful and stifling. This lush film feels and looks a lot like a British Heavenly Creatures or Fun, fused and reimagined by Lynne Ramsay, Harmony Korine, and Diane Kurys. (86 minutes)
BY PEG ALOI
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