Wilderness

A love story set in Cornwall marks out Justin John Doherty as a talent to watch.

A besotted Katharine Davenport and James Barnes

Wilderness is a first feature by the Luton-based filmmaker Justin John Doherty and it's an exciting debut. Indeed, the direction is so striking that it is surprising that we have had to wait until now to see this work which dates from 2017. In that year it won a best director award in Sweden but the Västerås Film Festival is not among the most famous and that may explain why the award did not attract more attention here. For that matter, one of its leading players, Katharine Davenport, won a Best Actress Prize but that too was at a rather remote festival, Oaxaca in Mexico.

When he made Wilderness, Doherty had already had many years in the industry making short films but, even if this feature comes across as a small work (much if it plays as a two-hander), the carefully considered direction is evidence of a strong talent for a full-length dramatic tale. Set during a single weekend with Cornwall as the location, this is a study of a couple whose relationship unexpectedly becomes strained. John, a black jazz musician intent on his career and often travelling in consequence, has developed a strong physical bond with Alice (that's Davenport's role). Snatching at meetings whenever possible, they have had little time to get to know one another in a meaningful way but the inter-racial element doesn't make either of them have doubts about planning a future together. Nevertheless, the renting of a cottage on the Cornish coast is their first opportunity to relax together in circumstances that will enable them to find out more about each other's character and about their compatibility.

The only racial incident that occurs comes in the form of a brief encounter with a hostile local landowner (Geoffrey Bersey), but the weekend proves to be far more thwart than either John or Alice had anticipated. Things start to go awry when a dinner with neighbours known to John reveals that Frances (Bean Downes) now married to Charlie (Sebastian Badarau), a former drummer, had once been a girlfriend of John's. This is an unexpected discovery and it irritates Alice (when talking to her about the other couple earlier John had chosen not to mention it so it comes out of the blue). John, too, has been made uneasy at the same dinner by noticing how Alice's assertiveness makes her intrusive when commenting on the rural life adopted by Charlie and Frances and the problems inherent in it.

All four leading players are adroit but the film is very much centred on John and Alice and on the extent to which the tensions that emerge between them threaten what they had assumed was an established relationship. In John's case we learn that he feels weakened by his emotional dependence on Alice while her own ambivalence has more complex roots. But, if the situation is believable, Neil Fox's dialogue sometimes feels unreal and contrived and we are left hesitant as to our own feelings about the pair when, ideally, their future - or lack of it - should be an issue that engages us emotionally.

Doubts may enter in as to the overall effectiveness of the writing but one admires unreservedly the skills of Doherty's direction. His love of jazz has helped him to find pieces which, whether heard on disc, on tape or simply as background music, add a great deal to the mood of the piece. The film's opening segment neatly incorporates a series of brief flashbacks to confirm the physical bond between John and Alice and Doherty comes up trumps in his contrasted treatment for the scenes also involving Charlie and Frances: overlapping dialogue and quick editing give this section a distinctive feel. Indeed, one senses that Doherty was working very closely with his editor Steven Worsley while also contributing usefully in another capacity as the film's photographer. There is scarcely a scene in Wilderness that does not suggest how much care was taken with it (consider for example the wordless montage of a beach idyll set off by calm jazz and the way in which the tone then changes in a moment as a dramatic event occurs unheralded). I may have reservations about the telling of the tale (doubts which some may not share) but I am deeply impressed by the directorial skills of Justin John Doherty.

MANSEL STIMPSON

Cast: Katharine Davenport, James Barnes, Sebastian Badarau, Bean Downes, Geoffrey Bersey, John Macneill, Colin Matthews.

Dir Justin John Doherty, Pro Justin John Doherty and Neil Fox, Screenplay Neil Fox, Ph Justin John Doherty, Ed Steven Worsley.

Baracoa Pictures/School of Film & Television, Falmouth University-Sparky Pictures.
81 mins. UK. 2017. Rel: 5 April 2021. Available on VOD. Cert. 15.