Director: Scott Graham.
Starring: Chloe Pirrie, Joseph Mawle, Iain de Caestecker
Running Time: 90 Mins.
Synopsis: Seventeen-year-old Shell (Pirrie) lives and works with her father Pete (Mawle) at their petrol station, hidden deep in the remote Scottish Highlands. Though devoted deeply to her father and the confined and lonely Shell begins to display confused and conflicted emotions towards him.
Scott Graham’s directorial debut in the big wide world of feature film is a mixed bag. Whilst on one hand it features a bizarre and interesting father-daughter relationship, it fails for much of it’s running time to do anything particularly memorable or shocking with it, instead choosing to wander down other narrative avenues.
It’s a shame, as the first twenty minutes are intriguing to say the least. The relationship between Shell and her father is loving and sweet, and yet uncomfortable to watch at the same time. The film’s dénouement is equally uncomfortable, yet manages to cleverly subvert the relationships that were so heavily focused upon in the first half of the film. Sadly though, the middle section is both long and unfocused, lagging for way too long.
The direction here is not at fault – the fact that Graham manages to make you feel isolated and freezing cold with long, sparse establishing shots alone proves the man knows how to put his audience in the picture, whilst the excellent, layered performances from both Joseph Mawle and newcomer Chloe Pirrie show that he can get great performances from his actors.
Sadly, it’s Graham’s screenplay that drags this competent production down. Had this been a short film with the insubstantial middle chunk removed, then it would have been a great little gem about love, escape, and sacrifice. As it stands as a 90 minute feature, SHELL is let down mostly by its length and its lack of focus throughout the second act. Here’s hoping for a tighter narrative from Graham next time round.
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