In a landmark year for LGBTQ+ rights, God’s Own Country shuns ‘gay movie’ cliches – there’s no ‘coming out’ melodrama here – as, in the harsh wilds of Yorkshire, Lee uncovers affecting tenderness in the unspoken and the understated. “No.” Recalling the novels of Harper Fox, particularly Scrap Metal, Lee’s film excels at exposing the cracks in life at this remote farmstead.Įven before the arrival of Alec Secareanu’s chiselled farm hand, Gheorghe – a quiet Romanian who strikes up a clumsy romance with Johnny – God’s Own Country rivets as a study of human frailty and family tension. “We?” he grunts when his rutting partner suggests a date. He doesn’t smile for nearly an hour, brooding and antagonising and pushing every button he can find. Seven minutes in, he’s rutting another guy in the back of a trailer. Within minutes, it’s clear this is a man suffocated by duty and desolation, and newcomer O’Connor etches an extraordinary portrait of an individual in emotional arrest. At night, he has meat, potatoes and a tinny for dinner, then drinks himself unconscious.
He's given his heart away, and it's time to pay the price.You’d be forgiven for thinking that windswept Yorkshire planes aren’t the most obvious setting for a steamy love story, but there’s nothing obvious about God’s Own Country.Ī remarkably restrained debut from director Francis Lee, it centres on young farmer Johnny (Josh O’Connor), who toils alone on the family farm under the watch of his sickly father (Ian Hart) and stern grandmother (Gemma Jones). When tragedy strikes, Cam's resolutely held secret is finally revealed and Nichol must face the truth. As the cold Scottish springtime melts into summer, Nichol finds himself falling in love. Even his grandfather takes to the cheeky city boy, whose hard work and good head for figures help set the farm back on its feet. Somehow, Cam quickly charms his way through Nichol's defenses and into his heart. Something about the young man's tired resignation touches Nichol deeply, and instead of giving him the business end of a shotgun, he offers Cam a blanket and a place to stay.
He says his name is Cam, and he's on the run from a Glasgow gang.
Nichol? Not so much.Īs lambing season progresses in the teeth of an icy north wind, the last straw is the intruder Nichol catches in the barn. His late brother and mother had been well-suited to life on Seacliff Farm. Now he's hip deep in sheep, mud, and collies. Is there room for love in a heart full of secrets? One year ago, before Fate took a wrecking ball to his life, Nichol was happily working on his doctorate in linguistics.
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