Make Up
Claire Oakley’s debut feature is a minimalist drama dripping with atmosphere but with a paucity of plot.
Shock windows: Molly Windsor
Atmosphere
can only take a film so far. Opening with the roar of the elements set against
a black screen, Claire Oakley’s feature debut immediately asserts its pedigree.
A car’s headlights penetrate the darkness, and inside we see Ruth (Molly
Windsor), chewing her fingernails, peering out at the shapes illuminated by her
ride. She is shortly deposited at a holiday
caravan site in Cornwall, where she hopes to be reunited with her boyfriend,
Tom (Joseph Quinn). At this stage little is divulged, but one suspects that
Ruth, 18 – but appearing much younger – is a runaway.
Before the
nightmare begins, Claire Oakley provides us with a nightmarish setting. With
its bungalows squatting on the landscape like toads on a rockery, the campsite
offers a grim escape from the comforts of home. This being winter, the weather is
inclement, with howling winds and fog-enshrouded dunes, while the abrasive sound
of barking dogs, screaming children and the otherworldly cries of the night adding
to the malaise. Cannily, Oakley deprives us of an establishing shot, so that,
like Ruth, we feel uncertain of our bearings. And the director injects cutting
shards of the disorientating onto her stage, with a spectral face peering out
of a window, or an unchecked comment from a resident. The initial unease recalls
the original Straw Dogs, also set in
Cornwall, far from the tourist-friendly arcadia of Fisherman’s Friends. Who would want to live in such a hellhole,
with its rubbish, bleak isolation and unbroken exposure to high winds and
driving rain? There is a gaudy amusment arcade, but even there the electricity
cuts out.
Oakley, who
has elicited strong, natural performances from her actors, exhibits an
immediate command of her material. But her material is thin. As Ruth, Molly
Windsor strikes an imposing presence, her performance largely made up of reaction
shots to undefined noises and imagined apparitions. At times, the film flirts
with the supernatural and one wonders if Make
Up is a ghost story, or maybe even a revenge thriller. Ruth has come a long
way to be with Tom, but immediately suspects another woman in his life. There’s
the imprint of a female kiss on his mirror and strands of long red hair in his
wardrobe. But this is really a rites-of-passage drama just toying with other
genres.
Truth be
told, Make Up is a rather enthralling
short film stretched to feature length. However, as
a calling card for Oakley, it is full of good things, not least the excellent
sound design of Ania Przygoda and the elegant editing of Sacha Szwarc. Nonetheless,
a certain repetition and reliance of scenic squalor is not enough to keep us
gripped. So, it’s up to the central turn from Ms Windsor and strong support
from Stefanie Martini as a colourful camp employee and Lisa Palfrey as the site
manager to provide the film with its interest.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Molly Windsor, Joseph Quinn,
Stefanie Martini, Theo Barklem-Biggs, Elodie Wilton, Lisa Palfrey.
Dir Claire Oakley, Pro Emily Morgan, Screenplay
Claire Oakley, Ph Nick Cooke, Pro Des Sophia Stocco, Ed Sacha Szwarc, Music Ben Salisbury, Costumes
Holly Smart, Sound Ania Przygoda, Dialect coaches Tim Charrington and
Steve Hall.
Quiddity Films-Artificial Eye.
85 mins. UK. 2019. Rel: 31 July 2020. Cert. 15.