Our first Andrea Arnold film, and a fantastic one at that: RED ROAD
We're back in the dark reaches of a pessimistic and aggressive portrayal of the world's "most beautiful place": Scotland. In Ryan's words, it can be a terrifying place. Andrea Arnold's slice of Cinema Verité inspired by the Dogme 95 aesthetic and film movement, really puts you in a scary place that is equally horrifying and mesmerizing.
As a counterpoint to the last film we covered, this is also a film about watching people, innocently enough through the eyes of a CCTV operator, but how, through this character's trauma, how that power is easily manipulated for her personal gain. This is a fascinating piece of cinema and one of the strongest debuts from a first-time director. Enjoy this incredibly dark and uncompromising film at your own peril but you won't be disappointed.
Laura: I see Red Road, and then I sing it like Night Moves by Bob Seger walking down a Red Road I'm,
Ryan: Yeah, every time I watch Red Road, it reminds me of why I don't miss Scotland.
Laura: It reminds me of how I do. Because all the junkies are so nice to you, typically.
Ryan: No, they're not.
Laura: They just talk about how big my boobs are and they're just so pleasant isn't nice.
Ryan: Oh, look at those jugs. I remember that. Yeah. Hated it so much.
Laura: I like it when people are nice to me.
Ryan: Okay, so we're recording. Yeah. I mean, the only other person that hates doing this as much as me is the dog.
Laura: Yeah.
Ryan: Joking. I'm hilarious. Why would I want to become, the absence of anyone's life with this quality of humor?
Laura: You need to be quiet because a woman's about to talk. Yeah, hush up, man.
Ryan: Okay. The patriarchy still exists. You know that, right?
Laura: Not in this house. Shut your hole.
Ryan: Yeah, I wish I could make a joke about it, but that's 100% true. Right, carry on. It's your thank you. Five, four I don't need a countdown.
Ryan: Okay.
Laura: Well, hello there. Welcome to On the BiTTE the podcast that uncovers full frontal male nudity in cinema. My name is Laura, and I am joined by my co host, Ryan. Hello, Ryan.
Ryan: Hello.
Laura: Thank you for being quiet while I introduced the podcast.
Ryan: Yeah, I wasn't quiet earlier. I might keep most of that stuff in.
Laura: Great. I'm very excited to talk about the 2006 psychological thriller Red Road, a film that I've heard about, a, film that I had not seen until we watched it for the podcast. A film you've seen several times and a film I got to be honest, I loved.
Ryan: Yes. I'm trying to think of, like there are maybe a handful of nice films set in Scotland. I think all the ones, as films go, like this one's. No, I mean, I don't know. You're not at any point going to see in, the Universal version of, Red Road, Kate Dickey taking a condom that's full of semen and then inserting it into her vagina.
Laura: Like, as a ride?
Ryan: Yeah I mean like, probably not. I meant like the Universal rated film. Like, as in, like it was like the Disneyfied version.
Laura: Oh, I thought you meant like.
Ryan: No, an amusement park ride where they give you a used condom and it's like right, this is the next part of your wondering how you could make.
Laura: That into some sort of you need to convince thrilling amusement.
Ryan: You need to convince the staff member in front of you who's dressed as a policeman, that you've been raped. So the rape allegation goes through. Is that the universal ride?
Laura: I think of it more as perhaps an escape room where you have to look at the CCTV cameras and you got to pick the right one. Anyway, I should introduce what that's the.
Ryan: Sort of ride that needs a, height restriction. Yeah.
Laura: This would be, a house at Halloween. Horror nights, perhaps.
Ryan: It would be fucking terrifying. I mean, to be honest, there should be, a horror house, that is just set in because yeah, I mean, if you take this with, ah, anything of like a grain of salt. The thing is, when we were watching this film, it's so instantly recognizable because everyone comes up to me and goes, Scotland's very pretty. And I'm like, I don't know, man, I've lived there. It's terrifying.
Laura: It is. But it's also gorgeous if you leave the city and there's no people around.
Ryan: yeah, but we've also done a fine job of fucking up the countryside as well. Sticking up all those those flats, like, you know, like the Red Road flats that we see in this movie, that are kind of just a blight on the landscape. And that's kind of one of the reasons why they were torn down eventually.
Laura: So let me just run through our cast for this beautiful film. I love this movie. it stars kate Dickey as Jackie tony Curran as Clyde Henderson martin Compton as Stevie natalie Press as April and Paul Higgins as Avery And this is directed by Andrea Arnold. And this is the first time, but probably not the last time, we will be speaking about her. Okay, so the synopsis for this film that I pulled from Letterboxd is jackie is a CCTV operator. Each day she watches over a small part of the world, protecting the people living their lives under her gaze. One day, a man shows his face on her monitor. A man she thought she would never see again. A, man she hoped never to see again. Now she has no choice and is compelled to confront him.
Ryan: Okay, yeah, it's maybe a little bit.
Laura: Over long it's overlong and actually tells too much. And I didn't read the synopsis until towards the end of the movie, actually.
Ryan: And I go, oh, the film does a good job of spoon feeding you bits of information when you need them. it makes what obviously happens, or pervades certain moments even more horrific when they do happen.
Laura: Like I was missing bits of information. I kept asking you, wait, who is this man? What has he done? He seems like a really nice guy. And you go, he's not. He's like a good looking dude, and he knows how to take care of a woman. So I think he seems okay.
Laura: I want to just point out in the beginning of this episode that if you haven't seen this movie, you should you, can find it streaming. it's so good and there's so much of it that is so incredibly surprising that you wouldn't expect, that we will spoil hard. So just do yourself a favor and a treat and and if you haven't watched it already, just don't listen to this you should.
Ryan: You should. As a rule, now that we're almost 60 episodes into this podcast series, you should know by now not to watch the movie until you've listened to the episode. We've learned our lesson. We've stopped doing current films that were kind of new out and stuff like that because, well, for one reason, no one would watch them, because they'd have to go see the film, then watch the lane, listen to the episode, and stuff like that. So with this, at least you can watch the film well before you,
Laura: Listen to the episode specifically for this film. Because I loved it so much and it was such a surprise, every little thing that happened. I love this movie. See, it's like, really incredibly messed up, but so endearing, but also horrible and fucked up. I loved every second of it.
Ryan: I just don't know if I'd ever use the word endearing talking about this.
Laura: I think it is, and we will get into it.
Ryan: It's so incredibly dark.
Laura: You told me a million times before starting this that just strap in.
Ryan: It's a rough ride.
Laura: A rough ride.
Ryan: Yeah, it's a rough ride.
Laura: I thought it was lovely.
Ryan: It's pretty geez. Oh, it's really making me think about who I've married, what I've married.
Ryan: well, let's get into Andrea. Ah, because I don't think anyone who is familiar with her work will be at all surprised with the subject matter of some of her films. Some of her films are pretty kind of rough. They're pretty rough. but we're talking about Andrea Arnold. Andrea arnold OBE. if anyone wasn't aware. yeah, whatever. she's an English filmmaker. she was a former actor. she's been active since the 1980s. Let's say she first came to prominence as a filmmaker when she won the Academy Award for her short Wasp. And that was in 2005. And that effectively paved the way for Red Road, which came out in 2006 as effectively, her directorial debut. But the one thing I will say, and this is quite impressive, and probably makes her slightly more impressive than, some filmmakers of her ilk. Ah, certainly more so than, Jane Campion, is Red Road in 2006, fish Tank in 2009, and American Honey in 2016 have all won the Grand Jury Prize at can.
Laura: Holy shit.
Ryan: Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. She's an interesting filmmaker. I've always enjoyed her stuff. I think her stuff's pretty cool. so other than that, she's also directed four episodes of the Amazon Prime series Transparent. That was in 2014, or at least it debuted in 2014. I don't know if it's still ongoing. I didn't really watch any of it. George Bluth in it, right? Yeah, I was going to say it's. That George Bluth TV show. Doesn't he play like a woman? Doesn't he play like a transgender woman? Yeah. and, she did direct all of the episodes of the HBO show Big Little Lies, which was 2017 to 2019. That's probably bigger than Transparent. I think that's, a super very popular show. Big little lies.
Laura: Honestly haven't seen it and I didn't realize that she directed that. And I'm going to watch it.
Ryan: Yes, like I say, I think her stuff's, highly enjoyable and it's riveting stuff. So let's go through her filmography from start to finish. Now, I've already listed pretty much like 60% of it. her filmography is not extensive, but let's just kind of put it out there first. So she debuted with her original short, which was called Milk, in 1998. which always thought was weird because it also reminds me of a short film that's also called Milk that came out a few years either after or just before, by a director called Peter Mackie Burns. And I don't know if we'll cover any of his work. I'm yet to see his other feature film that he's made recently. But Peter Mackie Burns was a tutor of mine when I was at university. so that's why I kind of brought him up. And he also has a short film that went and won, I think The Gold Lion. It's like The Gold Lion at Berlin Alley, which was the short film award for that. But he had a film called Milk. And I just bring that up because Andrea Arnold has a short film called Milk that came out around about the same time in 2001. She has another short called Dog. Then obviously, Wasp comes out and, wins the Academy Award. And then Red Road in 2006, fish Tank in 2009, wuthering Heights in 2011, followed by American Honey in 2016. Cow, which is a documentary from 2021, which I'm really interested in seeing. And then she has a new film coming out called Bird in 2024.
Laura: Cool.
Ryan: So that will be interesting to see. And also I have down here as a small note, she did direct four episodes of I Love Dick Show in 2017 and I have no idea what that show is.
Laura: I love Dick Show. Or a show called I Love Dick.
Ryan: A show called I Love Dick. Yeah. So I love Dick Show.
Laura: sounds like something I would like.
Ryan: Maybe it might just be a romantic comedy with a guy who's also called Richard.
Laura: Wonder if it's about Dick Van Dyke.
Ryan: Maybe.
Laura: Seems outside of her scope.
Ryan: Jim chimney cheru, eh?
Laura: Jesus.
Laura: I found out that this film was part of the advanced party scheme. And it's something I was unfamiliar with up until this point. It is a concept of three films following a set of rules proposed by the executive directors who were Jillian Barry, Lone Sheriffeg, and Anders Thomas Jensen. And the concept of this came out of Chats, that were had between those executive producers and Lars Von Trier, who, as we know, was a founding member of the Dogma 95 movement.
Ryan: Yes, I met one of the founding members of the Dogma 95 movement when I was in Berlin for some seminars and stuff. I can't remember his name, because that's almost what, 20 years ago at this point.
Laura: M. Okay.
Ryan: Yes. But I am aware and certainly Lars von Trier, if I think about the Dogma film movement, I think Lars von Trier for the most part, really, because I think of the idiots, that's probably one of the biggest ones that came out of that.
Laura: Right. This is a jumping off point or an offshoot from that movement. the films that are in the advanced party scheme were meant to be made by different first time directors and producers. So the executive producers created a list of characters and gave them backstories, which the three directors could use to build their own stories. The casting for all three of the films was to be done at the same time by each of the directors with the same characters and actors.
Ryan: That's why it says it's based on characters by these two individuals at the end of the film.
Laura: Right, correct.
Ryan: Right. That's interesting.
Laura: So they all had to work together to build these worlds, these three directors. so Red World was the first one, followed by Donkeys in 2010. That was directed by Morag McKinnon.
Ryan: Yeah, I remember Donkeys. I've met Morag.
Laura: Oh, cool.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: and the third one, was meant to be done by Michael Norgard. But from what I've read, it is reportedly in development limbo. So it never or has not happened.
Ryan: That seems unlikely to happen at this.
Laura: Stage at this point.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: We'll never get the full trio. interesting, isn't that?
Ryan: Yeah. Also to me, again, you see it that way and you talk about the advanced what was it called? The advanced party scheme or something.
Laura: Yeah, advanced Party sounds like yeah, it.
Ryan: Sounds like something you'd go to a town hall to fucking talk about with your county members.
Laura: It's not as cool as Dogma 95.
Ryan: No, it might not be that way, but also screams, the amount of elitism that I faced when I was trying to make films and look for funding in the Scottish film industry. So it kind of just goes to show how kind of exclusionary that the system is over there by doing things.
Laura: Like so yeah, I think from reading about it, Andrea Arnold felt excited kind of about the confines of the project. But then also when she said she was talking to kind of other writers and directors, she felt a bit like a sham. This was her directorial debut for Feature.
Ryan: Yeah. Also an incredibly restrictive directorial, ah, feature. Certainly something like this that looks like it's been, it was shot on digital. It has a very low budget feel. But also I kind of think it adds to its appeal, but at the same time, it feels incredibly restrictive. I didn't realize that this was the case, and I thought it was from an original story, but that just feels like there's a big difference between, I think, putting restrictive boundaries on a creative so that you get the best results, as opposed to the creative putting those restrictions on themselves in order to get the best results. So for me, I feel like it's, a kind of weird imbalance when you kind of speak to me about how this is a project that's been kind of engineered by a couple of executives, and being followed through by a couple of other directors. I feel like you kind of get lost a little bit in the fog of it all.
Laura: they had ways of changing it around a little bit, because when they were working together on these stories, because the three directors worked together and Andrea realized she needed two more characters, so they had to bring it up in the meeting with the producers. And they said, well, the only way you can have two more characters is if the other two directors agree and add those same characters into their films.
Ryan: I mean, the hoops you'll jump through for film funding, that just sounds like a bit of a nightmare. But also, this film was developed as part of the Sundance Institute as that I feel like it requires further reading.
Ryan: So I'm kind of wondering because certainly my experience, with, the Sundance Institute and the directors and stuff who have gone through the Sundance Institute is that they go there with the prospect of improving their work and getting real on industry insight from in industry insiders and directors, producers and stuff to make better films. So they're basically taking the scripts that they have. I think Tarantino is a really good example, and I think he has some give or take. I think, his early work is pretty impressive. when he took Reservoir Dogs to the Sundance Institute, they definitely improved his work far, more for the slightly I'm confused, and I'm concerned just with kind of how this film comes to be. And I mean, to be fair, to be honest, only knowing that stuff now, and I've only seen the film a couple of times, I don't think that stuff really affects it that much. It's still a pretty impressive film with all of those restrictions that have been put on it. and certainly it's the most successful out of the bunch that got made. I e. The two that got made out of the three filmmakers that were picked.
Laura: Right.
Ryan: So I don't really know. I think that's interesting. I just don't know if I'm there's that kind of nefarious undercurrent about it, where I'm just like, why can't you just fund the films that you write? And you're like, this has some level of commercial or cultural appeal, which I find OD, because it really doesn't paint Scotland in a fantastic like this film. So I do kind of wonder about the cultural appeal of it. But, yeah, it's OD it's an odd scheme that I feel like it is.
Laura: They had some guidelines. I'm sure there were more than this, but it was a six week shoot in Scotland. They, had a list of seven characters. And let's see. Oh, it was a million dollar budget.
Ryan: I mean, a million dollars, or well, is that a million dollars or a million pounds?
Laura: It said a million dollars.
Ryan: So it's probably less than that, then. Probably a fair amount less than a million pounds. seems weird that it wouldn't be.
Laura: Pounds since they all agreed that it would be shot in Glasgow, but I don't know.
Ryan: Yeah. I'm surprised that not to kind of put down it seems like a Scots ah initiative. So why wouldn't they grab from the pool of potential filmmakers that were already residing in Scotland, as opposed to having to grab people from England to make films in Scotland?
Laura: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know about that either. I'm not sure how they were picked. I know that Andrea Arnold, was not familiar with Glasgow at all when she shot this film and when she.
Ryan: Planned doesn't it doesn't show. I mean, you can certainly take some of the more industrial cities up in north of England and transpose that to Glasgow. Glasgow is very much of the same sort of I do I do wonder about these initiatives. And certainly Red Road got a fair amount of buz. I was in college at the time when, I was studying at Edinburgh. This is before I went to university. But yeah, it was getting a fair amount of buz because you had like an Oscar winner at the helm of this movie. And it was utilizing a lot of, the current Scottish talent and stuff like that. And it was a lot kind of darker and things. But I think the problem was that, again, it's kind of following the same kind of stereotypical and kind of thematical ideas that we were seeing in Scott's film at the time as well, where it's like small faces, it's like train spotting. It's relatively quite doer and it's quite gray, and some of it has a little bit of a sense of humor, but for the most part, it feels like inherently quite violent. And it's urbanized and everyone's impoverished and everyone's upset and sad and grumpy.
Laura: Is it because they keep getting English directors to go up to Scotland and shoot films?
Ryan: I don't know.
Laura: I'm just like most of the ones that we have covered that are set in Scotland are directed by English directors.
Ryan: They are, but they're also written by there's, like, Scottish writers. John Hodge is a you know, he was the best person at the time to adapt irvin Welsh's stuff and I do think that let's take Irvin Welsh as an example. That material is incredibly dark and it's unforgiving, but there is a dark humor about it which I think is very innate to just being a Scotsman, being a Scots person and living in Scotland is having a sense of, I guess, gallows humor. And when I was writing the TV show that was going to be set in Scotland, that was for better or for worse, a comedy drama that really reflected the job as it was. And that was just the way that you that's just the way that you deal with it.
Laura: There were parts of this film that I thought were really funny.
Ryan: Yeah, there's some humor in this. And I feel like that's kind of an innate ability of being someone from Scotland is that you're kind of surrounded by kind of an injection of humor into effectively what could be perceived as like these relatively quite traumatic moments. Or at least that's kind of how I feel. I've always approached these things that have happened in my life. It's very relatable.
Laura: I think that that is a great way to jump into this bad boy.
Laura: Okay, before we do, I was mentioning to you earlier that I recognized Kate Dickey while we were watching the film. And I go, what do I know her from? And I realized that she was Liza Aaron in Game of Thrones. And I felt good about remembering that.
Ryan: Probably her most well known role other than probably Red Road, there is probably other things that she's in. But it kind of escapes me just now. And I mean, I can have a little look on my phone and see if there's anything else of the the.
Laura: Two main characters in this film or the actors are familiar to know Kate Dickey. And then Tony Curran, who we all know from the third installment of the Big Mama's House trilogy.
Ryan: What what's he doing? What's he up?
Laura: Because he's in such great know, he's in Shallow Grave, he's in Gladiator, he's in the sequel to Underworld Evolution. he's in Miami Vice. He's an outlaw know? He's in some good stuff. I just wanted to bring up Big Mama's House because that's funny to me.
Ryan: okay. For Kate Dickey, though. I mean, she's in the witch. She's in the last amazing in the witch. She's in the northman. She's in the Green Knight, she's in Prometheus, she's in filth.
Laura: She's amazing.
Ryan: Yeah, there's a bunch of other things.
Laura: Yeah, it wasn't surprising, but it was.
Ryan: I also don't want to compare her career to Tony Curran's either because we've already mentioned oh, wait, hold on. Tony Curran. So he's in Thor, The Dark World. Gladiator, x Men First Class. Tintin the Spielberg One, Blade Two. he's in Pearl Harbor League, of Extraordinary gentlemen. He's also in a movie that I quite enjoy that I don't think anyone else really enjoyed. Midnight Meat train.
Laura: I remember you watched that without me one day, and I was very upset. I would like to watch that.
Ryan: If you want to watch it. I could quite easily watch that tonight. Directed by Riyhu Kitamara or Kitamura. Sorry, who? how long is that movie? I think it's like an hour, 40 minutes. Oh, no, it's an hour and a half.
Laura: Perfect.
Ryan: Okay, so 98 minutes. So it's about an hour and eight. But, I mean, you have I'll allow it. Yeah, but you have to deal with Bradley Cooper.
Laura: Bradley Cooper.
Ryan: Because he's in it for the entirety.
Laura: But it's Bradley Cooper from before. He was wicked greasy, so I'll allow it.
Ryan: I don't know. It's got Vinny Jones in it, so I mean, I don't know who's complaining about that.
Ryan: let's be perfectly honest.
Laura: We have got to talk about this movie.
Ryan: We do.
Laura: I don't know where your notes start, but I don't start my notes until that very first sex scene in the van. I don't have a lot of notes. I was just enjoying it, and I was just writing things that came to.
Ryan: Of we can kind of dance around a little bit. I mean, a lot of what it is is mean, quite a lot of my notes are like, oh, my like, isn't Scotland fucking scary? Oh, my God, what a shithole.
Ryan: It, like all this sort of know, like, there's the underlying thing with a lot of these council estates as well, is know, and I think the film gets it right. And I've visited a few of these estates for either filming projects or because I knew people who lived there and things and the same thing applies. There is low budget housing, mostly council housing, and you're sharing it mostly with, m most of the time, it's with ex cons or just people who can't afford to move.
Laura: Now, that's how they were when it got into, like, the so forth. But when they were originally constructed, specifically, the Red Road flats, which are real, were constructed between 1964 and 1968. And it did provide more of an upper kind of class not upper class, but a middle class housing. And people were finding it better than what they had access to before. So it was like an upgrade. but that particular building had a lot of problems, especially just those type of block housing had a lot of problems because it did become more of a hotspot for it's just a breeding place for crime, like antisocial crime disaffected youths. They were, like, throwing stuff from the roofs and, burgling houses. That particular building also became a hotspot for suicides.
Ryan: yes, not unsurprising, but the thing is that they wouldn't put bars on the windows because then it becomes a fire hazard because those buildings in general, they can be death traps if a fire goes up.
Laura: Well, there was a lot of controversy in this building. We need to talk about this movie. But I wrote notes about the building because there was controversy over the use of asbestos in the building. The architect who designed the building said steel and asbestos operate as the collective that stabilizes Red Road and holds it together, albeit provisionally, as a viable, safe housing solution, which in 1977 caught fire and the structural integrity of the building was compromised.
Ryan: Great.
Laura: Yes. It was condemned in 2008 and was torn down between 2010 and 2015.
Ryan: Yes. And think of all those heart, those folk who fucking died from asbestos poisoning or asbestos related, illness before that happened. yeah. I will say, though, that the estate at least that what they've chosen, because let's talk about they are a character in themselves, really. I mean, that estate has a pervading sense of threat and of forebod.
Laura: It's so big and it's such a statement, kind of in the skyline, in this kind of it's a modernist, brutalist building. So it's quite striking, all of them.
Ryan: Yeah, from even certainly in Glasgow, Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, because a lot of those, they've tried their best over the last, say, ten or 15 years to really clean up those areas and try and make them lucrative. Because the thing is, the minute you start cleaning up those areas and you start bringing in, say, more expensive housing, you bring in another a different class of person. And then that, effectively has a slight purifying element to the community. but, yeah, I will say that the buildings and just the way that the locations and stuff are characterized really add a nice I say they add a really great, like they cast a real dark shadow over the story of this film. and certainly that is very much what you get is a very dark and unforgiving landscape that the film is depicting here. But it's very much a kind of mystery story.
Ryan: Know, Kate Dickey, who plays Jackie, is the CCTV operator, and she spends her time watching people on a day to day basis, obviously reporting on crimes and stuff more.
Laura: But she always watches that particular area. That's her area, right. The Red Road.
Ryan: They've all been assigned districts, so they're obviously not being jumped about and stuff too much.
Laura: I guess you get to know your area pretty well, and your characters.
Ryan: Yeah. So you'll see the same people walking around and stuff like that. So she sees an older man who's got like a dog, who's a little bit poorly. she'll see a cleaner that works in the same, building every time. And see kind of her story as all these silent experiences. And the thing is, she knows them, but they have no idea who she is.
Laura: Very voyeuristic, in terms of how that is set up.
Ryan: And I guess there's a kind of.
Laura: getting like these relationships almost, with these people, and they. Will never know who she is.
Ryan: No. And this is a weird kind of.
Laura: Counterpoint inserts herself into their lives, I guess. Yes.
Ryan: but this is a weird kind of counterpoint to the film that we covered previously, where I feel like this is so much more of a kind of, slightly more accurate and a slightly more interesting perspective of someone who spends their time watching you. I wouldn't say necessarily that she's a voyeur. It is her job, but that is her job, to watch people and to keep people safe. But the main thing I would also say is that she's using her role to give her an advantage into this ploy that she's hatching that we're kind of, slowly being introduced to, kind of over the course of the story.
Laura: Very slowly.
Ryan: It's a very slow you do not.
Laura: Know why she's doing this until the end of the film.
Ryan: Pretty much, you get hints.
Ryan: I am also kind of wondering how many times over the course of the 60 something episodes that we've done can I say Cinema Verity? I wonder.
Laura: We should start counting. Or maybe we'll have someone, who listens to the podcast do it.
Ryan: Someone had their Cinema Verity bingo card out. Is Ryan going to say it this time?
Laura: Well, you've already said it twice.
Ryan: I have, tell me more. I can admire the film's simplicity. Certainly like the title design, the way the film is shot, the general style of it. It's very much it's all shot handheld. It's all relatively quite close on kind of short lenses. It feels like very pure filmmaking. But it also feels like it's a film that's been made very fast and certainly on a budget in very real locations with very real people, for the most part. So it does have that going for it, and that it does feel very real because it feels quite tangible, which also kind of adds to the level of suspense in it, which is, kind of, building as the film goes on.
Laura: Yeah. Every time she levels up, this situation that she's in, it had me screaming. I was very nervous about her.
Ryan: Yes, but she does have a boyfriend when we first meet him, which is played by Paul Higgins. And you'll remember Paul Higgins from, the Thick of It. he plays the scarier version of Tucker, a character called Jamie McDonald, who they're more scared of than obviously ah, Peter Capaldi's character in that thing. But Avie and Jackie are shagging.
Laura: Yeah, that was the first thing I wrote. I, ah, go. Sex scene in the van. Broad daylight, so slow. Cute dog roaming free. So that was the slowest, most awful sex scene I've ever seen in a closed car. It was disgusting. That guy was pumping, like, at a quarter speed of what he should have been at. And then he just finishes, doesn't he? Ask her if she finished. She's like yeah, earlier.
Ryan: Yeah. How she did it earlier.
Laura: Lies.
Ryan: Yeah, probably. I mean, it's more of an insult than anything else.
Ryan: But what this film does do, and I think the film does a very good job of, is making sure that you know exactly why there are used spent condoms everywhere in Scotland.
Laura: Yeah. There really are. In real life, there are just condoms everywhere. On the ground, in the grass, just everywhere. In phone booths, especially.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Tons. There's just condoms. If you open a phone booth in Scotland, there's a condom in it.
Ryan: Yeah. Probably 100%. Yeah. And certainly if it's on the phone receiver, that's, seen as like, that's a special moment. You don't use the phone, obviously. You don't touch the condom.
Laura: You don't touch a phone booth.
Ryan: No.
Laura: It's a sex booth.
Ryan: Of course not. Well, you shouldn't be using the phone booths anymore, obviously. No one uses a phone booth anymore for anything other than sexy time.
Laura: gross.
Ryan: Here, look. At least they're all being safe.
Laura: Absolutely.
Ryan: You know what I mean?
Laura: Good for them.
Ryan: I'd rather step on a used condom than.
Laura: HM, maybe don't go there.
Ryan: No, I was going to say human shit. But then I'm also like but then you've got, like, semen on your shoe. No, I think no, I'm good.
Laura: I'd rather probably have semen on my shoe than poo because you could wash that off easier than poo. The poo will get stuck all in the groove.
Ryan: It's really yeah, I mean, I guess you can rinse it off.
Laura: I'd rather step incum than a lot of things.
Ryan: Yeah. that is a real head scratcher. not going to lie.
Laura: You don't agree?
Ryan: I don't know. I feel like I've brought pooh and semen into this account.
Laura: I wouldn't want to step on that.
Ryan: Okay. That's much better though. I think ice cream is better. Biscuit? Chocolate biscuit. Yeah. I was thinking like a slice of pizza.
Laura: Oh, yeah.
Ryan: Like if you step, then you would.
Laura: Slip and fall, probably. I don't know if you would slip and come.
Ryan: Okay. Well, it's still better than the you.
Laura: Would slip on the condom, though, as well. That's also dangerous.
Ryan: You would but it's in the phone booth.
Laura: You don't have to worry about it usually.
Ryan: Anyway, Jackie's life continues on as, this spiraling story continues in that she's watching this man, Tony Curran, who she knows exactly who he is. We're just not really privy to exactly what he's done. There is a newspaper. There is kind of other things. He is an ex con.
Laura: Don't know what he did.
Ryan: Yeah, we're not 100% sure what he did. And I mean released.
Laura: She doesn't like it.
Ryan: She's not happy. And she's looking to fix that.
Laura: you don't really get ah much of an intel into her life as much. Only these little sprinklings. She's not close to her family. You kind of get a hint that her husband is gone, but you don't really know if he's gone or if he's perished.
Ryan: But she's still wearing a ring.
Laura: but you don't exactly know what is happening. But she becomes obsessed with this gentleman yes.
Ryan: Who we now know as, his name is Henderson. but she continues to watch him. And Clyde is hanging out with two younger folk, guy called Stevie, which is Martin Compton and Natalie Press, who plays April. And they live in the same flat, on the Red Road Estate. But they're kind of like a trio. Like, they hang out with each other. But certainly there's schemey stuff going on. And I say schemey stuff, I'm like, at one point, Tony Kurin like, Clyde brings back like a giant log from somewhere. And he's like dragging it into the stairwell and stuff like that. And we find out later why he's brought a log in. But I'm just like, he's a good guy. I'm just like, oh, fucking hell, here we are. I'm back home. You know what I mean? I'm seeing this shite.
Laura: He's a van. That's a locksmith.
Ryan: And it looks like it's a star blue van. And they've painted on the side of it. 24 hours locksmiths with fucking Clyde's number on the side. And I'm just like, they're looking to rob houses. That's basically what that means. They're just going to start robbing. He looks like he's painted on that thing on the side of his car. But he doesn't. No, he doesn't.
Laura: He's a good guy.
Ryan: No. Well, we do find out later. Stevie's okay in breaking into people's houses, like, for whatever reason, stevie's completely unhinged bad boy. But Stevie's Mental. Yeah. Stevie's off his head. But yeah. it's just so rough. So rough. So unbelievably rough.
Laura: Well, she escalates this. The next thing I have written is how she shows up at a party in their flat.
Ryan: Terrifying.
Laura: I was freaking out because she just has a bag with some bottles in know, to drink to bring to the when it's she goes into the flats. She gets into the elevator. She ends up in the elevator with Stevie and April, who she hasn't met yet, but she's seen on the wrong.
Ryan: Well, we're just not we're not sure what she's after.
Laura: You don't know what she's doing. I didn't realize she was going to the party.
Ryan: But she goes to the party.
Laura: She says to Stevie, she's like, oh, yeah, I know Clyde. And they're.
Ryan: You know, they're all lies, like where they met and stuff. And the thing is, Stevie's asking these probing questions and he doesn't believe her. He does not trust her in the slightest. But there's this overarching sense of like, no one believes, her. And I'm just waiting for the moment where they're like, he's pretending to be nice. Because this has happened to me is like, they pretend to be nice to you and then they fucking pounce on you. And Stevie's a wee you know, he's a wee scheme bastard. He steals her purse. He's derogatory towards her. he's asking her all these questions. He doesn't believe her. Well and I'm just like I mean, I'm just like, well, she's putting herself into this potentially very dangerous situation. I've been to parties that look like that where someone just, like, pulls a fucking dog out of their jacket and.
Laura: The dog's running around blasting Oasis and blasting fucking Oasis. I'm like, got to get out of here.
Ryan: It's like, I better put down my Bud Light. Like, I need to go. If there's anything, will ever make me think about fucking, Scotland is like, someone's there with a bold cut and he's, like, rocking his shoulders back and forth. And he's listening to fucking Oasis. Because Oasis is their favorite band of all fucking time. Yeah. Welcome to Scotland.
Laura: That party didn't seem like a bad party, but it made me have you.
Ryan: Been to I don't know.
Laura: Everyone's, like, dancing and singing. And there's drinks and there's a little.
Ryan: Dog, rough as fuck.
Laura: Sign me up.
Ryan: Yeah, okay.
Laura: I like it when everyone's dancing. But she goes to dance and ends up dancing with Clyde. I, couldn't I, forget that she saw him earlier when she was stalking him in a cafe and he saw her there.
Ryan: 50 pence for a cup of tea, though. That's no bad. Yeah, I would say 50 pence. You didn't finish it? No, because she was incensed.
Laura: She was hard stalking.
Ryan: But, Clyde was there because he knew the lassie who was working there. Because we'd seen Jackie watching on the CCTV. Clyde shagging her outside. And this was another moment where another discarded condom just ends, up in the grass somewhere. But we saw her. And what was one of our lines?
Laura: You're going to say it in that voice?
Ryan: Yeah, the exact way that she fucking says it. So she brings over, like, a breakfast or something to Clyde. And she just goes and they say, I'm no nice to no laugh. I'm no laughing at her. Like, I've met plenty of folk who talk like that over the years and stuff like that. But I was just like, same thing. But yeah, he's a womanizer, this Clyde. Like, he's good with the ladies and that's kind of his reputation is that he kind of goes around like shagging. So that's kind of his thing. but like I say, the information is being spud fed to us. So it's kind of like I'm like, no, he's not a nice guy. You're like, oh, he's lovely. And I'm like, no, that's what they're all like in Scotland. Sorry. But they'll be your best friend and then they'll stab you in the fucking back.
Laura: he's charming for a ginger, right?
Ryan: yeah. Stevie says that as well. He's charming for a ginger. Well, no, he says he's charming for a ginger. Yeah. Yeah. He is. He is. Well, I mean, he is, but he is also trying he's a crimbo.
Laura: That's what I wrote down. He's a criminal and a bimbo.
Ryan: It's just like the setting, like the atmosphere, like, where we are and how impoverished it is. And there's a sequence where a poor wee girl gets stabbed and stuff, and she's watching on the CCTV and things. So, you know, you're surrounded by like that's all it is. There's a lot of horrible things going on. So you're always slightly on edge. And anyone who's ever found themselves, like, I guess in the US, if you walk through the hood or if you end up on one of these fucking estates back in Scotland or England, you're immediately on edge because, you know, you're unwelcome. So this is a kind of I'm.
Laura: Not going to say it. I don't want to make anyone mad.
Ryan: It's like this pervading sense that you don't belong there. You have nothing to do with this place, and certainly you'll be told otherwise if you do end up sitting there. So, she ends up going to the work.
Laura: She cuts out of work early to do it as well. She goes, oh, I don't feel well.
Ryan: Because she's watching Clyde on the video.
Laura: Yeah. And she sees them going to that pub.
Ryan: I mean, to be honest, I would do what she's doing for a pint of tenants. Honestly, it looked great. Yeah, a nice cold pint. The barman seemed nice enough.
Laura: So nice. It looked like a nice place to have a.
Ryan: Like it's like what one of our friends calls it, like a darrow pub. There was a place not far from where you used to live called the Scotsman.
Laura: Absolutely.
Ryan: And there's another place a little bit further out from it in Edinburgh, anyway. it was called the Grapes. I went into The Grapes once, and it was like it was fucking terrible. No music on, nothing. Me, my pal, and a couple of old men who'd been there since midday. And this was 08:00 at night. And, it's rough. You know you're not welcome. You know you're not fucking welcome.
Laura: When we walked in, you weren't there that night. But when we walked into the Scotsman, it was like a record scratch. Everyone stopped in sequence, all at once, turned and stared at us. All shaved heads, all with a pint in their hands, and just stared at us. And I thought, I would rather be anywhere else right now. I just wanted a drink.
Ryan: Thing is, those places are they're few and far between now. and I feel like they're a dying breed, like the old boozer. And certainly you will get that type of place, but it's like, in lieu of the fact that they're modernized to a degree, they don't have this it's like, oh, we haven't changed the pipes in years. You know, that sort of thing.
Laura: There's a lot of places around in Orlando that are getting kind of fixed up or gentrified that aren't as frightening as they used to be, which is a bit of a shame, in a way.
Ryan: A bit of a shame. some of them are still slightly frightening. You don't go into the biker bars. No, but you welcome in a biker bar, which is weird. yeah, I feel like I don't know, I feel like I went to.
Laura: That bar in Daytona Beach where, oh, the serial killer.
Ryan: Oh, the Eileen Warnos Bar.
Laura: Eileen warnos Bar. And I think it's called the Last resort.
Ryan: It's called the last resort.
Laura: And they have just a cooler of bottles and cans. And when we walked in there, they were nice to us, opened us up a beer, gave us a bumper sticker. And then there was a gentleman at the end of the bar that said that, oh, if you were in here yesterday, you would have seen a guy get stabbed.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: And we were there at maybe one in the afternoon, so luckily it wasn't teeming with criminals or anything.
Ryan: I remember there was a pub down on near, Haymarket. It was called the spider's web. And I don't know if it's the same place now, what a name. But yeah, that was a place where I saw a woman getting a shit kicked out of her by her husband at the bar.
Laura: Oh, my god.
Ryan: And then the Polis turned up. so it does happen. A lot of stuff happens.
Laura: well, there's also a fight at the what is this bar called again?
Ryan: The Broomfield.
Laura: The Broomfield.
Ryan: Welcome to the Broomfield.
Laura: That Clyde breaks up between Stevie and apparently Stevie's father. Right. Because that was his dad.
Ryan: Well, the thing is, all of those pubs all look like that. Like all of those, out in near estate pubs. They all look like that. with the big metal shutters on. They've got no windows like that. So they all look like that. yeah, they're the ones that they tend to replicate for the bars here in Florida that are meant to be like old English pubs, that sort of thing. They all look like that. And the pints are probably about a shade.
Laura: Well, this is when it starts to get a little bit sexy.
Ryan: It's leading in towards what becomes the dick scene. Guys, I know it's taken us a while, but we're getting there.
Laura: So this is quite a scene when this starts ramping up. A smile just came over my face. So they go back to Clyde and Stevie's place.
Ryan: Just so you know, obviously, Stevie has had a fight with his dad in the bar. But Clyde and Jackie have been chatting at the bar. And Jackie's playing, like, effectively, she's a bit standoffish. Right. But to be fair, that's not unheard of for probably lassie's going into bars like this. They would be a little bit defensive.
Laura: Well, she's playing game and she's being hard to get. But she knows exactly what she wants to do. So I mean, she's been stalking him, showing up at his place, going to his parties, watching his every move. And obviously she knows where he is and she knows exactly what she's doing.
Ryan: Well, Jackie we don't know. Jackie does make the mistake of asking him what's on Clyde's mind. And Clyde goes, I'm wondering what your cunt tastes like.
Laura: I started clapping, I think when that happened, I was like, I'm fucking so strapped in right now. Let's go. See. I told you he was a good guy. He's a nice guy.
Ryan: if anyone knows how to talk to a lady anyone in Scotland came up to you at any point and said that to you?
Laura: Yeah, but he's not like raw dogging that comment. She's been following him around. He's seen her a bunch of times. He didn't walk up to a stranger and say been is it because he.
Ryan: Says it with a level of even I wouldn't even test that thing here, actually. I couldn't get away with saying it because I'd be like, you should. Weird. No.
Laura: But he can.
Ryan: he had.
Laura: One of those like working man's thumbs that was half a black on his fingernail because it's obviously going to fall off. And he was like he jammed it.
Ryan: In a car door or something.
Laura: Yeah. I mean he uses that thumb to do things in this film did not appreciate.
Ryan: Yeah, he did have. Aye. Well that thumb goes somewhere. Anyway, we end up back at their place and Stevie's sleeping and stuff and then they end up having a drink in Clyde's room from that bottle.
Laura: Of whiskey she brought over when she was aye.
Ryan: That's when she gets her wallet stolen and stuff like that when you see the inside of the flat because they've got one of those electric ah, convection heaters with the orange glowing bars on them.
Laura: Space heater.
Ryan: Yeah. That's their only heating. but then also it's very dark. There's not a lot of lights and stuff either.
Laura: Nighttime.
Ryan: There's a distinct look of the film. There's a lot of kind of ah, flashes of color like yellows, reds, blues, yellow. there's a lot of nice primary color use in the film as well because for the most part it's pretty dreary looking. but certainly by the time we get into the bedroom there's this nice conversation where they're talking about there's the foxes and anyone who's familiar with like Edinburgh or Glasgow or anything like that. There is foxes everywhere.
Laura: Yeah. In London as well. They're so cute and they hang out.
Ryan: Outside the pubs and so fucking loud. One of my favorite memories and I don't know if this is anything I've ever told you before, but I used to smoke and I went outside to have a cigarette and I was sitting on my steps and probably less than 4ft away from where I was sitting. this little fox came walking down the path, stopped and looked at me and then walked onwards.
Laura: Adorable.
Ryan: There was a fox nest maybe 20 seconds up the road from where I used to live.
Laura: They're so cute.
Ryan: They are very cute. I would also say to you, don't go to pet them and certainly don't do what somebody that I once knew did before with a badger and decided to go into their burrow hole and then ended up getting bitten. They ended up going on a going, on like a rabies like a rabies medication program thing for like months.
Laura: That's what you get for being an idiot.
Ryan: Yeah. Very silly.
Ryan: Anyway, back to the sex, back to.
Laura: The kind of lingus.
Ryan: Yeah. I've got a lot of like I mean, I do have I've written it beat for beat here.
Laura: You did. Okay. Well, I only have cunningus and then right to it.
Ryan: Well, let's do this differently then. Let's see how let's do the lot of examination. Let's get the female perspective on some of these lines. Because I've only got Tony Curry's. I've only got Tony Curran's lines here. I've only got Clyde's lines here.
Laura: You know, I'm going to like is hold on. The lines that he says is it leading up to the sex part?
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Okay. So before that, I want to talk about when he goes downtown.
Ryan: But this is before that happens.
Laura: Okay?
Ryan: So he goes, you have very nice breasts.
Laura: ten out of ten.
Ryan: Okay, good. Well, you're a sexy fucking bitch.
Laura: Oh, eleven out of ten.
Ryan: And then he starts licking those nips. Remember that?
Laura: Yes. I would say eight out of ten. if not for that thumb.
Ryan: Okay, that's good. And then obviously that's when he goes down on her.
Laura: Okay, you guys, it's getting heated. All right? This whole and I don't know how dose to everyone involved. Tony Curran was only there one day for the scene, no rehearsals. And he got it fucking taken care of. He gets her trousers off, she rips off her shirt. Right? He gets right in there and he's just looking up at her. He's going to town. And apparently I'm getting really loud. My apologies.
Ryan: Are you okay?
Laura: I'm m okay. Turn the fan on. So that whole going downtown Connellingus scene, what they did to kind of achieve it because it looks like he's going at it right.
Ryan: There'S. Ah. An insane amount of excruciating detail, a lot of noise. It looks exactly what you think it would.
Laura: Yes. And you get that female POV again. Ten out of ten.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: So what they did is they put half a pair in between her legs.
Ryan: What?
Laura: Yes. A pair. And then he just went town on that pair. He just went for it.
Ryan: That's insane.
Laura: And then just angled the camera just right. And that's how you get that.
Ryan: Just half a pair.
Laura: Half a pair.
Ryan: And then it's like isn't it resting on her vagina?
Laura: Yeah, it's probably set in there.
Ryan: There's no way that he's also getting a wee bit yeah, probably. Yeah. He's probably kissing some fanny I was thinking about.
Laura: I mean, you could get a big pair. She's not a big girl. You could probably put a decent sized pair there and achieve that.
Ryan: But just scream at the props guys. Like, we need a big pair.
Laura: I mean, you don't have intimacy coordinators, at this time.
Ryan: And you are definitely not one day.
Laura: Shoot with a $1 million budget. She's probably just like, it's fine.
Ryan: I don't know. Yeah, they deal with it. I mean, you don't know the pairs there. and obviously you want to try and mitigate as much tongue to vagina contact as possible because I think at least certainly now they use kind of like hidden pants and stuff so that it still looks like there's something there. We've done things like lust caution and stuff. Where that's a, deck going in a vagina.
Laura: Yes.
Ryan: So at least with this, they're cutting around it. They're angling it properly. But to say it was just a pear I thought it was just like a kind of fleshy sack you just kind of put down there and like a flesh balloon. And you just give it a wee kiss.
Laura: From my research, it's a pear.
Ryan: There you go. Water pear, they would say.
Laura: so we're coming up to it. And I know you have a couple of lines that you want to say to me. but at around a minute 26 and 40 seconds, we're getting into this moment.
Ryan: Yes.
Laura: Drumroll. It's the dick scene. So after he's finished with that pair yes. He says a couple of things.
Ryan: Well, she comes, doesn't she?
Laura: She sure does. This M is a nice man. This is a good man.
Ryan: He's sorting her out before he gets his goods.
Laura: He's a gentleman.
Ryan: He is a gentleman. He's getting it seemed to. And then he's going to get himself seen to. I mean, for most men, the foreplay is the best part.
Laura: I would agree with the ladies, probably.
Ryan: Yeah, same. I'm agreeing with the men as a man myself.
Laura: Wonderful.
Ryan: Who mends it? anyway, so, like, after he finishes up, he goes, I want to fuck you. He goes and then Jackie's like, I want you to say it again.
Laura: Say it again.
Ryan: Say it again. He's like, I'm gonna fuck you.
Laura: And I start clapping again, ladies and gentlemen. I start clapping again. And then this is where we see what can only be described as an erect penis.
Ryan: Pretty much. He's getting a condom. He's ripping it open with his teeth and he's going to put it on. And then we see what can only be described as yes, ladies and gentlemen, penis.
Laura: A, penis. And this is where the voyeurs in our last episode failed us because that is what we needed to see here.
Ryan: we are technically well, I will say this. It's not as on show as the erect penis in under the skin. No, not by a long shot.
Laura: No.
Ryan: It's covered by a hand.
Laura: Yes.
Ryan: but you do see that, shaft. But you don't see the head all shaft.
Laura: No.
Ryan: Head, yes.
Laura: Shaft, no tip. But it was striking because we don't get that very often. And especially these days, if you try to put an erect penis on screen in your film, you will get barred, banned. You're going to get an X NC 17 rating. And good luck having your movie out there, which is stupid and ridiculous, but here we are.
Ryan: But in the vein of the honest side of the filmmaking, it's really in keeping with the general tone and griminess that the film has in general. This entire sex scene is very in keeping with the overall tone and style of the film as well.
Laura: For sure. Yeah. And in terms of honesty, 100% it is there.
Ryan: But, we see it. It's not particularly pronounced. He's obviously got half of it covered and stuff to the point where there was disputes at the time of whether or not it was actually his.
Laura: Correct. So in interviews, Tony Curran is deliberately vague when discussing it. And he said, quote, well, I guess you saw what you thought you saw. And, he goes on to say, it's like that scene in Fight Club where big penis flashes up on the screen and no one even notices it was an erect penis. Yes, but then again, it's a piece of art. It's not pornographic. If the audience think it's an erect penis, then that's a good thing. If you thought it was an erect penis, then that's exactly what it was. It wasn't a banana. Let's just say it's all down to the magic of cinema.
Ryan: I mean, unless we have definitive proof otherwise, we just have to assume it was.
Laura: Yeah.
Laura: and Tony Kern's mom was sitting behind him at the screening of the film.
Ryan: Lovely. Well, I mean, she's probably seen it before. Probably not erect, but, she's probably seen it before.
Laura: 100% seen it before.
Ryan: Yeah, she's probably seen it before, because he was also in Rome.
Laura: Oh, well, rome. Don't even get me started on Rome. Fuck HBO. Fuck HBO and their prosthetic penises. What a bunch of liars.
Ryan: But, they finish having sex. it's very brief, I guess.
Laura: He gives her a little apology.
Ryan: Gives her a little apology.
Laura: He's been in jail.
Ryan: He has been in jail. But also a woman. Yeah. I think, this is kind of what it was all leading up towards.
Laura: Yeah. Everything starts coming together in an incredible series of events that is intriguing and wild and unexpected.
Ryan: So she leaves the bedroom and obviously swipes that condom. Swipes the condom. But. Clyde's pretty pissed off. And he's just like, you're only here for a fuck all this stuff. And then she leaves. She goes into the bathroom, takes the semen out of the condom, and then inserts that semen into herself, squeezes it.
Laura: Out into her hand like a tube of toothpaste. Yeah. And I was like, she's trying to have a baby. Which I'm like, it's not going to work like that. But I was wrong. also, she had grabbed a rock off the street earlier and I didn't know why. And then she takes the rock out.
Ryan: Of her pocket in the bathroom, smashes our face.
Laura: I once again was screaming. I did not know what she was doing. And then you yell, she's going to get them done for rape. Like, no, this is not good for me too.
Ryan: You're going to accuse them of rape?
Laura: Good.
Ryan: Yeah. Not good for the Me too movement. No. but yes.
Laura: that was insane. And so she's kind of utilizing the CCTV cameras that she had been using to stalk Clyde. She rips her shirt, rips her pants, runs out of the flat straight towards the CCTV camera. So she's gathering her evidence. and then calls the yeah.
Ryan: Aye. And then, that was her plan all along, effectively. but the film isn't over from there. effectively, like her getting him done for an attempted rape, she ends up dropping the charges. But she seems to have this strange moment of clarity. I mean, there's that horrible moment where she's looking at her old daughter's things and she like, stuffs her clothes with other clothes to hold this effigy of her dead daughter.
Laura: Correct.
Ryan: So what you do realize is that Clyde was driving under the influence and he crashed into a bus stop and effectively killed Jackie's husband and daughter at the same time, effectively ruining her life. And he did go to prison. And it'd been ten years or so. And he's now been released. And she thought to herself that he shouldn't have been released. And so obviously made up the accusation of rape, in the best possible way that she could have in order for him to stay in prison. But effectively, they're able to I guess there's a weird kind of reconciliation that happens. yes.
Laura: And it's kind of incredible, the whole thing. It's as though she needed to do it. She needed to confront him because she's never come to terms with the loss of her family. She's living in the same flat. Everything's kind of gone to shit. Her family life has gone to shit. And she's using this really horrible thing and this horrible scheme to come to terms with this horrible loss that she endured. and luckily, she decided not to fully, press charges against this man who did not rape her. But yeah, it was kind of amazing.
Ryan: Yeah. And then, I guess as everything kind of comes full circle. She's able to reconcile with the man who's effectively on the straight and narrow, and he's getting to know his own daughter that he's never met before, all these sorts of things. And, she's able to reconnect with her family members, who are also I think the people that we meet at the end of that film are her dead husband's, parents. So, like her parents in law, technically. and then also, she, gets to see that life moves on, and you're able to kind of she sees a man whose dog was poorly, who he had to put down, now has a new dog.
Laura: and it's this my heart was warmed.
Ryan: It's this nice symbolic image, of her being able to move on with her life. So isn't that the way it goes? Accuse a man of rape.
Laura: Get your life back.
Ryan: Get your life back.
Laura: I have one more thing that I wrote down that I didn't get to say yet. In the initial outline for the rules of the film, the initial outline for this particular character, Jackie, is described as 34 years old, has lost her only brother, her husband, and their child habitually. She maintains a relationship with a married man, and she gets just enough intimacy to avoid shutting herself away from the world.
Ryan: Right. Yes. Some of that stuff stayed, but the rest of it didn't.
Laura: well, I'm sure maybe she lost her only brother, but they didn't write it into that into the screenplay.
Ryan: Yeah. Because it's kind of not needed at that point either. yeah. I mean, I guess so. Again, strangely restrictive as well. And yeah. I don't know if those level of story restrictions make the best story, at the end of it, as I.
Laura: Mean, I think you already mentioned that this film won, the Jury Prize at Cannes.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: And special achievement by a British director at BAFTA, Film Awards, best Screenplay at the BAFTA Scotland, and a bunch of I mean, she won a bunch.
Ryan: Of things for yeah.
Laura: Yes. Great.
Laura: Do you want to get into the ratings? Do you have anything else you want to say before we wrap up this amazing film?
Ryan: I literally said everything I wanted to say, other than there's a budgie in the film as well.
Laura: There is.
Ryan: And the guy who owns the budgie says, oh, he just doesn't like women. He doesn't like strangers. Women's freak him out. All right. Okay, here we go. as for ratings, are we going with the penis scene first? Do you want to go first with penis first?
Laura: in terms of visibility and context, I gave it a two.
Ryan: Yeah.
Laura: because it's not there for long, but it does kind of hold and hinge on that shot for an extra beat or so. So it's not that really quick blink, and you'll miss it type of thing. I'm pretty sure you're going to see it. And within the context, it is 100% honest and makes sense to be there in terms of especially the balance between the nudity in the film, in a sex scene, especially. So you get the balance between Jackie and Clyde. He's putting on a condom. You see that occurring, within this kind of insane, wild sex scene. that's pretty intense. And that is a two. You just don't see it in full. It's a full side, half side male nudity.
Ryan: Jeez. Right. so I would also kind of add to that I maybe give it like a two and a half because we only see half of it. but contextually kind of tends to bump up a little bit, I guess. So it stays at like a two and a half. But yeah, you're right. it does hold on there for a wee while. And it does kind of work contextually. And I would be again, it's brave and it's honest in its depiction because for the most part, that's how it happens.
Laura: Guys, you're not putting a softie in there.
Ryan: You know, thumbing in a softie. That's not how that works. so it makes sense. And it's the only other one that we've covered, thus far, since, obviously under the skin, because under the skin, it made sense. He had a bit of a stoner. and then he fell into the black abyss. but, yeah, in this I did like it. And it's in keeping within the kind of tone and style of the film as well. So I appreciate it for that.
Ryan: Anyway, ratings of the film, I think five. I gave it five stars as well.
Laura: it's so refreshing, especially for people like us. You've seen this film before, but for someone, people like us who've seen you feel like you've seen so many movies. And because it's our joy, it's a hobby. it's something that we like to do in our free time. I love watching films. I love going to cinema. I want to eat it all up. I want to see everything. I love watching movies. And to find something the cinema.
Ryan: Cinemacron, we'll call you.
Laura: I'm going m to eat it up. Cinemacron. That's cool. I like that. I'm going to put that on my letterbox. Bio nerd. But I love when you see something new that you've never seen before that just blows your brains. It's so interesting and dynamic and fun and fucked up and kind of gives you or, me most of the things that I like to see in a film. And it was really horrible and heartwarming in a horrible way that you don't get often. And I, enjoyed it so much. So much. And it's not that long. That is wonderful. So five minutes. I would watch this again. I love this movie.
Ryan: It is 2 hours long, so I would say it is long. It doesn't feel long. So it's actually interesting. That's the difference. but yes, I give it five stars. yeah, I guess, like, as a contrast to you, that I think it's a terrifying film, m set in a very scary part of Glasgow. and it reminds me a little too much of how scary home is sometimes. and growing up in Scotland, because people are pretty scary there. But like you say, I think there's a real human element that maintains there, that kind of gets itself out of the shadow of the industry, like the industrial structures that kind of, pervade the landscape in the film as well. So there's a real like I just I don't know, I think the first time I saw it, I maybe didn't appreciate it as much, but now, obviously, I think it's yeah, I do. I do really, I do really enjoy it, and I do think it's very well written, very well casted film. And when certainly you tell me about the restrictions that were put on it, creative restrictions, in very commas it does kind of make me think that, it's quite miraculous that the film turned, out as good as it did.
Laura: In different hands, it could have been a complete disaster. But, she was able to construct such a fascinating story and shoot it so well within those restrictions that were given, and just tease you like crazy the whole way, but you don't even feel teased. You just are wanting to know more. And it is suspenseful and pretty freaking thrilling, really. It is shocking. Yeah, it was genuinely shocking for me, and I loved it.
Ryan: Yeah. thumbs, up all round.
Laura: Well, great. I'm glad now we can finish up.
Ryan: We can we can end this thing.
Laura: Guys, I hope you enjoyed this movie as much as we did. Loved it. Loved it. Coming to you from the Broomfield Pub.
Ryan: Carpets, and it's sticky.
Laura: I've been Laura Ryan, and I'll be watching you on the CCTV cameras, pervo.