Here is a tightly laced, elegantly cut gothic period drama that might unfairly get overlooked as the barrage of upmarket cinema vying for awards begins. The 19th-century source material, Sheridan Le Fanu’s novel Uncle Silas, isn’t super well-known outside university literature departments, and the lead actors aren’t especially famous names either – although gravelly-voiced David Wilmot, here playing the heavy, has built a career making indelible impressions with supporting roles on film (The Wonder, Ordinary Love, Calm With Horses) and TV (Station Eleven). Likewise, if you caught limited TV series Ridley Road then the talents of Agnes O’Casey will already be a known quantity. But in a way, the freshness of face and/or versatility of both O’Casey and Wilmot, along with the rest of the cast, are what makes this feel like a discovery. It’s definitely something new and different as it insightfully reworks some classic feminist literary notions, filtered through a very 21st-century approach to period material with its unsettling score, jittery editing and nods to horror tropes.
