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Herald rating: * * *
Britons are watched by more than four million surveillance cameras and, on an average day, will pass under the gaze of several hundred. This stylish and clammy Glasgow-based thriller skilfully exploits the dramatic potential of that fact of life, but it builds highly charged expectations on which it fails to deliver.
The film is written by director Arnold from characters developed by Danes Lone Scherfig and Anders Thomas Jenssen. They have worked in Glasgow before, on the marvellous Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself . That project presumably spawned this film, the first of a trio which will approach the same characters from different angles.
Arnold, an Englishwoman who has won a short-film Oscar, reveals herself as a film-maker of skill and mastery, but the last half-hour of the too-long movie doesn't live up to the rest.
Jackie (Dickie) is a lonely 40-something who monitors CCTV cameras while carrying on a joyless affair with a married workmate. For the most part this means casting a benevolent eye over the city - night cleaners jive to iPods; lonely men walk their dogs; people engage in sex even more empty than her own. But one day she sees someone she neither expects nor wants to see.
We think we know what her connection is with Clyde (Curran), though that does not dispel the tension generated by what she does next. Much of the film unfolds in an eerie silence, and the contradiction that Jackie exerts power while feeling powerless adds to the drama.
But because it is set up so well, the explanation of her behaviour, which comes late, seems somehow flat.
The film's masterful editing (Nicholas Chaudeurge is credited) combines with Arnold's skill at framing shots crammed with detail to make a rich cinematic experience - although be warned, it's a grim and grimy Glasgow it shows and the dialogue at times needs subtitles.
Even if it finally disappoints, it announces in Arnold a brilliant talent.
Cast: Kate Dickie, Tony Curran, Martin Compston, Natalie Press
Director: Andrea Arnold
Running time: 113 minutes
Rating: R18, contains violence, offensive language and sex scenes.
Screening: Rialto
Verdict: Three-fifths of a great film, this stylish, Glasgow-based, Danish-inspired stalker drama does not deliver on its promise.
