Good Favour

Cert: 12A; Selected cinemas

A gaunt, translucent teenager staggers out of the woods surrounding a religious commune somewhere in deepest, darkest central Europe. Covered in scars and barely able to speak, Tom (Vincent Romeo) is reluctantly taken in by village alpha male Hans (Alexandre Willaume) and his family out of a sense of Christian duty.

The young stranger’s presence starts to change certain dynamics at play in the community, with some believing that a threat has been invited in that could ultimately bring ruin. Others are more intrigued, however, namely Hans’s beautiful teenage daughter Shosanna (Clara Rugaard) and his wife (Victoria Mayer).

These feelings are accelerated in the community when it transpires that some bizarre things are happening when Tom is around. A cat is among the pigeons, but the question is whether or not it is malevolent.

On the back of The Other Side of Sleep (2011) and the superb Mammal (2016), Irish director Rebecca Daly continues to amplify the mystique by keeping the viewer at arm’s length. As such stories tend to, Good Favour makes us think more about the weirdness of Tom’s hosts rather than the slightly otherworldly interloper himself, a trick Daly and cowriter Glenn Montgomery also pulled off in Mammal.

Newcomer Vincent Romeo is a striking screen presence, hovering between vulnerable and predatory throughout. Mayer stands out in the supporting ensemble.