Bait ★★★★

An expressionist parable for our times Dir: Mark Jenkin 1hr 29mins (15)

It’s hard to imagine how an arthouse film could “better fit the current British moment” than this “small marvel” of a feature debut, shot on a shoestring by director Mark Jenkin, said Danny Leigh in the Financial Times. Set in a picturesque Cornish village, it’s about the seething tensions between the entitled urbanites who buy second homes in the area and the resentful locals who find themselves priced out of the market.

Yet Bait is far stranger than that makes it sound, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian. Shot in black and white with a Bolex cine-camera, complete with glitches and scratches left on the print, it resembles an episode of EastEnders shot by the great expressionist German director, F.W. Murnau. What stands out is Jenkin’s “infectious love of tactile detail”, said Sophie Monks Kaufman in Empire. The smooth sides of a glass of beer, the rhythm of lapping waves – these striking images of the seemingly mundane are what stay with you.

The story centres on a feud between a struggling fisherman (Edward Rowe) and the smug patriarch (Simon Shepherd) of a Prosecco-quaffing family, said Ian Mantgani on BFI online. It veers in tone from Straw Dogs to Do the Right Thing.

But what makes it such an effective parable for the age of Brexit, said Mark Kermode in The Observer, is Jenkin’s lack of preachiness, He resists the temptation to caricature either side. This will be seen as “one of the defining British films of the year”.