This bafflingly peculiar and lifeless dramedy comes from Swiss film-maker Pascal Bergamin, who is based in Zurich and London and has released some English-language work in the past. This film has a rural British setting with British characters played by British actors, but it has the feel of something Google-translated from another project, perhaps with a European setting; there is a repeated and weirdly emphatic reference to two art dealers from the German town of Cottbus, mysterious individuals who never appear on screen, and whose existence does not serve any satisfying or interesting purpose.
But that objection could be raised against every single character in the film. A strange – and strangely unconvincing – event brings three women together. Steph (Jeany Spark) is an unhappy teacher; Tina (Tara Fitzgerald) is a mysteriously overqualified caretaker at Steph’s school and Ashley (Yasmin Monet Prince) is a troubled, smart teen with artistic interests. While driving her car, and quarrelling with her dad Jon (Mark Lewis Jones) who’s in the passenger seat, Steph hits a dog – which has also somehow been hit, perhaps immediately before or immediately afterwards, by a second car driven by Tina; and so the very first significant moment of the film is muddled and duplicated. At the roadside Ashley claims she is the dog’s owner, and is angry and distraught.
This whole fiasco supposedly brings the three women together for a 93-minute non-story, superficially eventful but paralysed by its utter implausibility and dullness, a narrative that appears to proceed by a series of brain-fart quirks rather than believable events. The acting isn’t at all bad, and I should say Lewis Jones brings confidence and warmth to his role. But he, like everyone else, is let down by a script that is completely unconvincing, like a Sunday teatime telly drama written by a Martian.
• Portraits of Dangerous Women is in UK and Irish cinemas from 11 October.
