Star rating **** Dir: Joanna Hogg With: Kathryn Worth, Tom Hiddleston
This first feature from writer- director Joanna Hogg is one of the finds of the year. Graceful, intelligent, and gorgeously shot, it's enough to give debuts from British directors a good name again.
For Hogg, this is a third career leap, having previously worked as a photographer and television director. The first woman to helm London's Burning, she was also behind the highly acclaimed EastEnders' episode, Dot's Story.
Unrelated is another example of thoughtful, popular drama that expertly draws the viewer into its comfy embrace. Fortysomething Anna (an excellent turn from Kathryn Worth) has come to Italy to spend a few weeks with her old school friend and her extended family. Shy, awkward, and worried about a marriage back home that feels suspended in mid-air, Anna finds herself gravitating towards the bright young things in the party and away from the pipe, slippers and Pinot Grigio crowd. With the teenagers she can be carefree, for a while anyway.
Though Hogg has packed the film with stunning shots of the Tuscan landscape and constructed a set of all-too-believable characters, the most important thing she does is stand back and allow silence to reign when necessary. There will be time for shouting and declarations, but only after the groundwork has been done and characters have got to know each other as people do, awkward pauses and all. Anna's story is not something she is ready to part with easily, making it all the more affecting when she does.
The director's willingness to go with the flow proves infectious, making for a relaxed, sun-baked afternoon of a film that rings natural and true. Glasgow Film Theatre, from tomorrow-Sunday; Filmhouse, Edinburgh, October 17-23
