Kicking off this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF), we have the International Premiere of The Incomer, after its first appearance at Sundance in January.
It’s a new oddball comedy from Scottish director Louis Paxton – his debut feature – with About Time and Harry Potter star, Domnhall Gleeson, in the titular role.
Set on a rural, remote and incredibly Scottish little dot off the coast of the Highlands (the place’s name, phonetically at least, boils down to ‘Auch Isle’), the film certainly clears the bar for entry when it comes to the opening night of a Scottish film festival. Anyone still in need of convincing, though, will surely be won over by appearances from Michelle Gomez and John Hannah in supporting roles…
‘There’s naery a problem cannae be solved by heavin’ people into the sea!’
The film begins with a voiceover from island resident Isla, played by Gayle Rankin, as she outlines the rule that she and her brother have lived by for thirty years, decreed by their late parents: allow no incomer.
Auch Isle belongs to the two of them, and the gulls. It’s a rule that’s kept them safe and fairly happy, keeping the old ways and dressing up like birds to ward off anybody who comes near. The arrival of Gleeson’s Daniel, though, may well spell the end of that. They can fight off incomers; they can scare away fishermen…but who, if anyone, can survive a run-in with the North Eastern Scottish council?
Gleeson clearly enjoyed his time with this role, in which Daniel is well and truly out of his depth as the council official sent by his demanding boss (Gomez) to recover the island. From the minute he steps foot off the boat, he’s set upon by Isla and her brother, Sandy, who hurl rocks at him while dressed up in black feather suits and wiry masks rejected from the set of The Wicker Man.
His baffled expressions at various points in the story (which does go to some wacky places, sometimes to its detriment) echo the brilliant scene with him in About Time, where Rachel McAdams wheels out dress after dress as potential outfits for a party as the clock runs down and down.
Daniel may technically represent the cold, uncaring hand of the local authorities, who probably intend to whack a Wetherspoons on the island’s bonnie shores, but the film hangs on his own eccentricities, which often close the gap between himself and the siblings. Fantasy figurines (painted, I’m sure, by Daniel himself) line his desk back in the office and there’s a thread about wizardry that feels like a knowing wink back to his heritage as the eldest Weasley. Without giving anything away, comparisons to other cultural juggernauts will surely come thick and fast when the film releases in earnest later this year.
Grant O’Rourke lends a childlike sensibility to Sandy, the naive brother to Isla’s no-nonsense position. There’s more than a bit of Wall-E to his fascination with the detritus that washes up on shore – each one offering some small clue about the nature of the greater world on the mainland. His escapades and misunderstandings got a lot of laughs out of the audience in the screening I attended, but as strong as several gags were, the handful of bits that didn’t work so well seemed to be Paxton’s favourites, cropping up again and again until they lost what little sheen they had to begin with.
As ever, your mileage with the gags on offer will vary, but there was a distracting amount of toilet humour and other oddities that seemed to slow down the narrative at points. A lot rides on your tolerance of the two siblings, too, who occasionally venture a little too far into outright silly or unbelievable territory, even in a story which does feature a vaguely mythical element in its discussions of Scottish folklore, which I’m usually all too game for.
While I wasn’t entirely won over by my stop off at Auch Isle, many in my screening were, so if it sounds like sweet fiddle music to yer ears, then I’d definitely encourage you to pick up a ticket – they’re going fast!
As far as Festival picks go, this is a good, if far from perfect, start for this year’s proceedings and I’m looking forward to seeing if it fares better for me in a sell-out crowd with a guffawing Scottish audience.
This film has an age rating of 15.
The Incomer is showing at EIFF 13-15 August with tickets available here. It releases in the UK on 4 September.
