Gwen (film)

Gwen is a 2018 British BAFTA winning [1] and BIFA nominated [2] period folk horror drama film with elements of gothic, supernatural, and psychological horror, written by William McGregor. The film premièred at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2018, where the film's young star Eleanor Worthington Cox received the Toronto International Film Festival Rising Star award.[3] The film is produced by Hilary Bevan Jones.[4]

Gwen
Directed byWilliam McGregor
Produced byHilary Bevan Jones
Written byWilliam McGregor
StarringMaxine Peake
Eleanor Worthington Cox
Music byJames Edward Barker
CinematographyAdam Etherington
Edited byMark Towns
Production
company
BFI Endor Productions
Distributed byAMC Networks
Release date
  • 7 September 2018 (2018-09-07) (Toronto International Film Festival)
Running time
86 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Welsh

After the Toronto International Film Festival premiere, Gwen was picked up for distribution in the United States and internationally.[5][6]

Synopsis

In the stark beauty of 19th Century Snowdonia a young girl tries desperately to hold her home together. A growing darkness begins to take grip of her home, and the suspicious local community turns on Gwen and her family.

Plot

Gwen, a young farm girl in North Wales, is out playing with her sister. They pass a neighbouring farmhouse where a group of men are tending to some dead bodies. The village doctor says that the entire family died of cholera. Gwen is chastised by her mother for being late and for burning the supper. Her father is not around, for an undisclosed reason. During the night, Gwen wakes and hears a commotion outside. Having failed to wake her mother, Gwen goes outside but is unable to see anything because of the stormy weather.

The next day, as the family gets ready for church, Gwen brings up what she heard the previous night. Her mother changes the subject. As they pass the house where a family died, Gwen sees a man nailing something to the door. During the church service it is revealed that many of the village's men have left to fight in a war. As they leave, Gwen's mother has a brief conversation with a man, which seems to leave both of them disturbed. On their return home, they find an animal heart nailed to their front door. The heart is thrown into the fireplace and Gwen's mother seems to go into a trance as she looks into a candle flame. The following day Gwen finds their crops have spoiled. That night Gwen asks about the man her mother spoke to, and asks if she is planning to sell the house, which her mother denies.

The following day, Gwen awakes to see her mother standing in the pasture among their entire flock of sheep, all of which are dead and mutilated. One baby lamb is still barely alive. Mother kills it with a rock and then tells Gwen to start a fire and burn the sheep's carcasses, which are now worthless. After cremating the flock, Mother takes the skull of a sheep and brings it to the front gate of the farm, where she breaks it into pieces and scatters them.

Gwen goes to investigate the house of the neighbours who died. She observes bloody hand prints throughout the house and rotting food on the table as if something sudden and violent had happened. Mother finds Gwen in the house and it is revealed that the neighbours' sheep died in a similar way before the family died. Mother chastises Gwen for entering the home of dead people and refuses to listen when Gwen points out the similarities to their own situation. Mother forbids Gwen to return to the neighbours' house. That night Gwen recalls happy memories of her and her family (including Father) playing together.

While drying Gwen's hair after a bath, Mother has a violent seizure. Gwen puts her to bed and takes care of her younger sister. Waking during a thunderstorm, she sees her mother standing in the bedroom doorway staring at her. The next day, though still weak and ill, Mother insist on going to church, where she experiences another seizure, prompting attention from the village doctor. After recovering, Mother and the children return home; the doctor advises Mother to leave. He prescribes 3 bottles of a tonic wine. As they have no money, Gwen takes one bottle with the promise to pay him back after the next market. The doctor says that the payment is due to the Quarry, which owns his practice. With her mother still ill, Gwen goes to retrieve eggs from the hen but finds that a rat has destroyed the eggs. She kills a chicken in order to make supper. That night Gwen dreams of her father, badly injured, trying to make his way home. During supper the next day Gwen entertains her sister and Mother joins them, seeming slightly better. After supper Gwen finds her mother cutting her arms and letting the blood into a bowl.

The following day Gwen bags up vegetables from the pantry to sell at Market. She convinces Mother to stay home. While at the market, the village people seem to be intentionally ignoring Gwen as she attempts to sell vegetables. She notices she is getting odd looks from some people. A young man who smiled at Gwen in church attempts to buy some carrots from her but his father forces him to leave. After an unsuccessful day, Gwen visits the doctor to obtain more of the prescribed tonic wine. She tells him she cannot pay for the bottle he has already given them or for the other two bottles needed. The doctor appears to be sympathetic and gives Gwen the two bottles of tonic. As she returns a flash of lightning frightens her horse, which escapes and runs off. It later returns to the farm with severely injured legs, and needs to be put down. Mother attempts to force Gwen to kill the horse, saying it was her fault, but Gwen is unable to do it. Mother slits the horse's throat and leaves it to bleed to death. Men from the Quarry come to the farm to see Mother. Gwen eavesdrops on the conversation, and hears the men claim Gwen stole the tonic (which is quarry property) and offer to overlook the theft if she sells the land. Mother sends them away and attempts to force Gwen to chop up the horse for meat as punishment. When Gwen refuses, Mother begins angrily hacking off the horse's head with a hatchet, and has another seizure. That night Gwen has a nightmare about her mother being possessed.

A while afterwards, as they walk on the hillside, mother stops and recalls how how many good friends they used to have around them; now they are the only ones left because the Quarry is buying up the land or forcing people out with threats. Later, at home, Mother instructs Gwen to retrieve a letter from a box and tells her it arrived shortly after Father left. As Gwen reads the letter she discovers that Father is not returning, for reasons that are unclear, and that Mother has been concealing this from the girls.

Gwen finds the man from the Quarry and another man outside the farm gates. The man from the quarry hands the other man a silver dagger as he looks at the farm. That night, as the girls go to bed, Gwen throws a wooden crucifix into the fireplace. That night she dreams again of her father, injured, trying to return home. The man with the dagger approaches the farmhouse at night. Mother goes outside to investigate and Gwen wakes up and follows. While outside the man approaches them, hits Mother and drags her back to the house, locking Gwen outside. Gwen retrieves a hatchet and breaks the lock. The man attacks Gwen and tries to choke her. Mother seizes the opportunity and slits the man's throat with the dagger he dropped. Knowing more men are coming, she tells Gwen to get her sister Mary. The man from the quarry arrives with a band of men. He hits Gwen's mother and pours liquid on her. He sets her on fire and tells the men to burn down the house.

Gwen and Mary escape into the hills and are watching from a distance. Mary asks Gwen where they will go. Gwen tells Mary they will go find their father.

Cast

Reception

Before release, Screen International picked out Gwen as one of the buzz titles from the UK to be seen at the American Film Market of 2018.[7]

Gwen was also featured in the Great8 program at the Cannes Film Festival 2018, a showcase by the British Council of exciting new UK talent.[8]

Critical response

Critical reception after the film's world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival was positive. The film became one of the festival's buzz titles, drawing praise for its folk horror routes and unnerving tone.

Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 71% based on 58 reviews, with an average rating of 6.47/10. The site's critics' consensus reads: "a gripping, solidly assembled descent into atmospheric period horror."[9] Metacritic reports a Metascore of 63 based on 6 critics, indicating "Generally favorable reviews".[10]

"Gwen is a Gorgeous Slow Burn Reminiscent of ‘The Witch.... Visually Gwen cleverly blends tropes from the Western frontier film with Gothic horror. The cinematography, particularly the isolated and threatening landscape of the town caught in the shadow of the mines, is stunning and atmospheric. So too are the film’s most explicitly horrific elements: Gwen’s recurring nightmares of her mother, accompanied by the lingering creak of doors on the soundtrack and slow tracking investigative shots into the dark. Although the film is hardly gory, McGregor and his production crew deftly craft a great deal of tension, particularly in the lead-up to the grim bloody final conclusion. Clever, beautiful and well-acted, Gwen proves to be an unexpected delight. It’s a slow burn, but one worth seeking out."[11]

"I admire McGregor’s chilly atmospherics most of all, which draw out the right notes of unease as the story builds to its powerful conclusion. He gives modern horror aficionados a few choice jump scares to keep them happy, but Gwen is all about that certain mood common to most folk horror films: a darkening eclipse of dread as the evils of the collective begin to spill out into the night."[12]

References
  1. http://www.bafta.org/media-centre/press-releases/winners-announced-for-2019-british-academy-cymru-awards
  2. https://www.bifa.film/awards/2019/winners-nominations/
  3. "TIFF Industry: Rising Stars". Tiff.net. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
  4. "GWEN PREMIERES at TIFF – Endor Productions". Endorproductions.co.uk. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
  5. Grater, Tom. "UK drama 'Gwen' secures North America deal (exclusive)". Screen.
  6. Mueller, Matt. "UK drama 'Gwen' starring Eleanor Worthington-Cox heading to France (exclusive)". Screendaily.com. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
  7. Grater, Tom. "AFM 2018: The buzz titles from the UK". Screendaily.com. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
  8. Wiseman, Andreas (May 4, 2018). "Hot Brit Movies At Cannes? BFI, BBC Films, Film4, British Council To Host 'Great 8' Showcase Of New Talent". Deadline.com. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
  9. "Gwen (2018)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango Media. Retrieved 22 August 2019.
  10. "Gwen Reviews". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 22 August 2019.
  11. Lipsett, Joe (September 10, 2018). "[TIFF Review] 'Gwen' is a Gorgeous Slow Burn Reminiscent of 'The Witch'". Bloody-disgusting.com. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
  12. Trussow, Tomas (September 24, 2018). "Toronto International Film Festival 2018 Report Part 9: Cannes You Dig It?". Filminquiry.com. Retrieved 25 July 2019.
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