Sight&Sound - 04.2020

REVIEWS

April 2019 | Sight&Sound | 75

Reviewed by Trevor Johnston
In Bruce Springsteen’s hyperbolic lyric, the
highways of New Jersey are “jammed with
broken heroes on a last-chance power drive”.
Meanwhile, in Fraserburgh on the Scottish
coast, a restless fish-packing worker drives his
son’s car at high speed along the town’s sea wall.
Bruce’s longing for escape haunts these shores
too: Finnie, the thirtysomething driver, and
his wife Katie both have “born to run” tattoos;
and Fraserburgh-born writer-director Scott
Graham opens his third feature with a written
quotation from Springsteen’s fist-pumping
1975 anthem of the same name. In Gurinder
Chadha’s recent Blinded by the Light, another
Bruce-inflected British drama, education gave
its Asian protagonist an escape route from
racism and confining suburbia. But for Run’s
white working-class character, the limited
opportunities speak more of “nowhere to run”.
While there’s a seeming disparity between the
grandiose rendering of Springsteen’s frustrations
and Run’s small-scale Scottish setting for similar
yearnings, at the heart of Graham’s film is a
brilliantly appropriate image that attempts to
square the circle of entrapment and escape in
this forlorn coastal context: the souped-up car
belts along the sea wall, does a rubber-burning
180-degree turn, then heads right back into town.

The driver ends up where he started, but does the

gesture of defiance in itself change anything?

That image and the question it poses are the

essence of the movie, which does well by the

story’s domestic set-up, peaks in the mid-section

(where the stunt drivers do their thing) and rather

underwhelms at the close. In Mark Stanley, the

film has a convincing leading man, bristling at

missing out on the life he could have had. And

yet with his wife, two kids and a suburban home,

the film suggests, there is plenty here worth

settling for, if only he could get out of his own

way. It’s just that the nagging ache of unfulfilled

dreams seems more dramatically potent.

Perhaps that’s why Graham devotes a

substantial chunk of the action to Finnie in the

car with his son’s unhappy pregnant girlfriend

(a vividly engaging Marli Siu), both realising

how different generations are repeating the

same mistake – failing, as per Springsteen, to get

out while they’re young. With confident night-

shooting on Fraserburgh’s twisty local roads, and a

sound mix that conveys the sonic boom of waves

crashing against harbour walls, Graham does

justice to the dilemmas facing his characters, even

though a lean running time and slightly skimpy

closing stretch suggest more application was

required to create a dramatically satisfying, fully

developed through-line from their situation.

Run
United Kingdom 2019
Director: Scott Graham

Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, present day. At the

fish-processing plant, employee Finnie can’t prevent

his work-shy son Kid from being fired. At home, it’s

clear that Finnie and his wife Katie’s dreams of a

better life are unfulfilled. One evening, Finnie sneaks

out and borrows Kid’s car for a spin. Thinking that

Kid has come to collect her from her job at the

bowling alley, the lad’s pregnant girlfriend Kelly is

surprised to find his father driving; the two experience

mutual recognition of their trapped situation, and

Finnie’s daredevil drive along the sea wall marks

a gesture of rebellion. They plan to leave town

together, but Finnie heads home instead. The next

morning, Finnie argues with Kid, who reconciles with

Kelly at the bowling alley. Finnie makes tentative

peace with Katie, resigned to their joint future.

Produced by

Margaret Matheson

Ciara Barry

Rosie Crerar

Written by

Scott Graham

Director of

Photography

Simon Tindall

Editor

David Arthur

Production Designer

Andy Drummond

Location Sound

Recordist

Cameron Mercer

Costume Designer

Rebecca Gore

Stunt Co-ordinator

Curtis Rivers

©BTR (WT) Ltd/The

British Film Institute/

British Broadcasting

Corporation

Production

Companies

BBC Films, Creative

Scotland & BFI

present a Bard

Entertainments

production in

co-production with

Barry Crerar

Developed and

supported by the

National Lottery

through Creative

Scotland

Made with the

support of the

BFI’s Film Fund

Executive Producer

Lizzie Francke

Rose Garnett

Robbi Allen

Ross McKenzie

Cast

Mark Stanley

Finnie

Amy Manson

Katie

Marli Siu

Kelly

Anders Hayward

Kid

Scott Murray

Stevie

Stuart Murison

Ali Sim

Douglas Russell

Mick

Lisa Livingstone

hairdresser

Mark Wood

best man

Euan Stamper

young groom

Caleb Imray

drunk boy

In Colour

[2.35:1]

Distributor

Verve Pictures

On the skids: Mark Stanley

Credits and Synopsis

Reviewed by Trevor Johnston

It’s a very sad fact that the victims of child

sexual abuse are considerably more likely than

the population average to repeat the cycle and

potentially become abusers themselves. Such

understandably sensitive subject matter isn’t often

treated in film, but the remarkable life of London

financial expert David Tait, who confronted his

own past sufferings and eventually became a

successful fundraiser for the NSPCC – climbing

Everest five times in the process – provided the

jumping-off point for this drama. However, much

as one would like to laud the film for its courageous

approach to undeniably challenging material, the

result proves a problematic viewing experience.

Screenwriter Susanne Farrell, working from

draft material by Tait himself, structures the

story across different periods, contrasting the

powerless young David’s awful treatment by a

family friend in South Africa with the somewhat

unsympathetic, show-off City trader he later

becomes. We know that a day of reckoning is

due, and the film lingers rather too long on the

run-up to that pivotal point, when the birth

of the first child in a second marriage has a

catalytic effect. Dramatically, this seems an odd

choice, since the most intriguing element of the

story – the psychological graft required to move

beyond those painful scars – is somewhat glossed

over in a disappointingly sketchy resolution.

As the older David, the talented Mark

Stanley (imposing in Clio Barnard’s Dark

River) rather struggles to gain traction on the

character, his exterior brusqueness keeping

the audience at a distance and thus ensuring

that the film never really picks up emotional

momentum. It’s a story that should move us,

yet in the end it falls dismayingly flat.

Sulphur and White

United Kingdom 2019

Director: Julian Jarrold

Certificate 15 120m 38s

South Africa, the 1970s. Adolescent David Tait

is sexually abused by an associate of his father

Donald. On the family’s return to London, Donald

also molests him. By the 1990s, David is a successful

City trader. He has left his first wife and child

to marry work colleague Vanessa. The birth of

their baby forces him to confront his past. He

becomes a noted children’s charity campaigner.

Produced by

Alan Govinden

Michael Elliott

Written by

Susanne Farrell

Based on the life

of David Tait

Cinematographer

Felix Wiedmann

Editor

Chris Gill

Production

Designer

Nick Palmer

Music

Composed by

Anne Nikitin

Production

Mixer Sound

J.J. Le Roux

Costume Designer

Natalie Ward

©UME9 Limited

Production

Companies

AMG International

Film presents an

EMU production a

Julian Jarrold film

Executive

Producers

Walli Ullah

Jim Mooney

Trevor Charles Price

Cast

Mark Stanley

David Tait

Emily Beecham

Va n e ss a

Aftab Shivdasani

Rajesh

Alistair Petrie

Jeff

Rosalie Craig

Amber

Sheila Atim

Samira

Anna Friel

Joanne Tait

Dougray Scott

Donald Tait

In Colour

[1.85:1]

Distributor

Modern Films

Credits and Synopsis