The Fall of Sir Douglas Weatherford

A forlorn widower campaigns to save the heritage of his small Scottish town from Hollywood-isation in this offbeat comedy-drama from first-time filmmaker Seán Dunn. A kind of tartan Taxi Driver, it combines Bill Forsyth’s whimsical Celtic charm with a slug of Ben Wheatley’s bitumen-black humour. It doesn’t all work, but it nails its ambitious, unusual tone nicely and Peter Mullan is a delight as the lowlands’ lonely man.

The Tyrannosaur actor plays Kenneth McKay, a resident of the fictional town of Arberloch and the curator of a small museum dedicated to an Enlightenment-era aristocrat called Sir Douglas Weatherford. McKay proudly shares tales of Sir Douglas’s exploits with the smattering of tourists that pass through, and polishes the glass cabinets that hold tales of this forgotten figure’s achievements. But Sir Douglas’s own narration reveals that far from the paragon of virtue McKay thinks, he was a supercilious berk with a ruthless streak (although to be fair, calling Benjamin Franklin ‘a pervert’ is a good line).

Seen Local Hero? Give ‘Local Antihero’ a spin

This intense, one-sided relationship is clearly a reaction to the loss of his wife a year previously, and the awkwardness that’s set in with his grown-up daughter (Men’s Gayle Rankin). Then the cast and crew for a hit fantasy TV show, The White Stag of Emberfell, roll into town and the museum is turned into a Game of Thrones-y fanzone for cosplaying locals. This chintzy commoditisation of Scottish folklore and local history is too much for McKay, who retreats further into the past, zeroing in on the show’s oblivious star (Jacob Oftebro) as a lightning rod for his growing rage. 

How deep into stalker-thriller territory Dunn wants to take us doesn’t become clear until late in the day. Instead, The Fall of Sir Douglas Weatherford offers a strange and often touching character study of lonely, isolated and mixed-up man who is fighting a worthwhile battle on behalf of his community in the worst possible way. Mullan makes it worth the watch, conveying deep sadness behind the eager fanboying, as well as the kind of mute rage that he makes him the closest thing cinema has to a lit fuse. There’s also an excellent score by Elizabeth Bernholz, aka Gazelle Twin, which adds eerie madrigals and haunting electronica to this combustible mix.

Seen Local Hero? Give ‘Local Antihero’ a spin.

In UK and Ireland on Fri Jun 12.