She’s no Rose of Tralee...
There’s no romance, not nearly enough songs, and as for Jessie Buckley’s Wild Rose... she’s too prickly by half
Wild Rose is about an aspiring Scottish singer from the wrong side of the tracks who dreams of travelling to Nashville to find country music fame and fortune. In other words, it’s A Star Is Born, only with a Glasgow accent, a slide guitar twang and no Bradley Cooper.
It’s easy to sum up this Tom Harper-directed picture like that, and you can sense that its makers saw the comparison coming. But in their determination to give us something conspicuously different, they’ve ended up delivering a stubbornly uncompromising film that is easy to admire but surprisingly difficult to like.
The clue is all in the first word of the title, because Rose-Lynn Harlan – played by singer, actress
and former I’d Do Anything talentshow contestant Jessie Buckley, from Killarney – is no man-pleasing wallflower. Yes, she may celebrate her release from prison by stopping off for sex and a smoke with a very peripheral boyfriend, but straight after it’s on with doing what she does best – being loud, in your face and her own worst enemy. My goodness, she’s a difficult young woman to like, let alone love, and that’s before we discover she’s an accomplished liar, a casual thief and has problems both with alcohol and angermanagement. At times, glaring out from a heavy fringe, she looks more like a petulant child than a single motherof-two. Yes, that’s right, Rose has two children more accustomed to being looked after by their grandmother (a particularly good Julie Walters, Glasgow accent and all) than they are by their own preoccupied mother.
Rose-Lynn, you see, has eyes only for the main prize – becoming a country music star. ‘Why country?’ asks the wealthy Susannah (Sophie Okonedo), who takes Rose-Lynn on as her new ‘daily’ and rather improbably quickly becomes convinced of her new employee’s singing talents. ‘Because it’s “three chords and the truth”,’ replies Rose-Lynn, quoting a famous explanation of the genre’s appeal.
Plot-wise, Susannah is also handy, as she just happens to be the sort of well-connected friend who knows someone who knows someone who knows Bob Harris, the host of Radio 2’s Country Show. A return train ticket to London and Rose-Lynn is surely on her way. Although anyone with even a basic knowledge of country music will know it can’t possibly be that simple.
Full marks to Tom Harper, screenwriter Nicole Taylor and lead producer Faye Ward for serving up a feisty female lead who isn’t defined by her relationships with men, and to Buckley for gamely delivering on their vision. But, in the process they also serve up a story without any romantic love whatsoever.
And for a film that should be standing comparison with the likes of Crazy Heart, there’s also a surprising shortage of good ol’ country music. This is a film with only two big musical moments – one served up in the brief Nashville section, which feels
Full marks for a feisty female lead who is not defined by her relationships with men
manufactured, while the other – apparently written by actress Mary Steenburgen – is belted out in Glasgow and, thankfully, is a real humdinger. Definitely no standing by your man here.