Strawberry Fields

A strawberry farm is the down-and-dirty setting for some serious sister issues in this low-budget British film. A young woman (Anna Madeley) calling herself Tammy pitches up among various waifs and strays to pick fruit in a Kent field. But it’s only when her highly strung, catty sister Emily (Christine Bottomley) shows up to haunt her that we realise Tammy isn’t exactly who she claims to be, and this whole drama – all the shouting, screaming, sex, punches and rolls in the hay that follow – is framed as a purgatory. Tammy is passing from one stage in her life to the next. Director and co-writer Frances Lea hopes to recreate the up-close emotional immediacy of an Andrea Arnold film, but this is a less sure, shakier effort, with some wobbly performances and a more awkward script. But grief and a messy shared history hang in the air like a river mist that won’t clear, and the two lead stars make it worthwhile.