ROSE: A LOVE STORY
In sickness and in health
RELEASED OUT NOW! 2021 | 15 | Download
Director Jennifer Sheridan
Cast Sophie Rundle, Matt Stokoe,
Olive Gray, Nathan Mcmullen
“What would you sacrifice for someone you love?” asks this confident debut feature from Brit director Jennifer Sheridan. While the title evokes Love, Rosie the film has more in common with It Comes At Night (which Sheridan watched in the lead-up to filming) and Let The Right One In; it’s intimate, delicate and ever so slightly bleak.
Rose (Sophie Rundle) and Sam (Matt Stokoe, who also wrote the screenplay) live isolated in the woods, surviving off the land away from human contact. Rose is ill, but Sam does everything he can to try to make a life for her. The nature of Rose’s sickness is part of the mystery which unfolds in the first hour of a movie which focuses on character more than plot – it’s a two-hander until the arrival of a troubled young woman (Olive Gray) in the third act.
Rundle and Stokoe are superb, and while the film plays with horror tropes in fun ways, at heart this is a story of devotion. The actors are a couple in real life, and the chemistry between them is palpable – indeed, the film plays almost as Stokoe’s love letter to Rundle, and the camera adores them both.
Quiet, beautiful and set against a vast snowy landscape, this is an unusual and wistful debut that feels in no way British. It’s all the stronger for it. Rosie Fletcher
Filming took place in a forest in Wales (where the crew got snowed in) with a 15-minute drive to get a phone signal.