Author: Kate Larkindale

James Marsh is best known for his documentaries, most notably Man on a Wire and Project Nim. Given the levels of anxiety created in both those titles, it’s no wonder he has created the menacing air of something about to explode in this tense drama about the Irish Troubles. The film opens with a prologue in which Collette coerces her younger brother to run down to the shop to pick up cigarettes for their father. He’s caught in the crossfire between IRA and British soldiers and killed. Jump forward 20 years and Collette has embraced the Republican cause. We find her about to plant a bomb in a London Underground station. But before she completes the drop, she’s snapped by an MI5 agent who offers her a Hobson’s choice: 25 years prison without seeing her son, or to become an informer. With life at home tense because of her brothers’ dedication to the Republican cause, the decision is not one she can take lightly. It offers her a way out, but she’ll be risking her life and betraying her family. Add into the mix the political manoeuvres facing the agent which will put Collette into even more peril, and things become explosive. This is a startling film about grief and vengeance in a family torn apart by tragedy. The actors keep everything simmering beneath the surface, the volatile nature...