Gwen

Filmmaker William McGregor’s bleak drama about women struggling to survive in the male-dominated, industrializing countryside of 19th-century Wales initially carries suggestions of supernatural evil, but ultimately implies that the real horror lies in man’s capacity for cruelty and greed. The titular character (Eleanor Worthington-Cox) is a teen scraping out a living with her mother Elen (Maxine Peake) and younger sister (Jodie Innes) on a desolate plot in the Welsh mountains, where they raise potatoes and keep a flock of sheep. In their isolated stone cabin, Gwen hears strange noises, sees wispy apparitions, and has persistent nightmares, while the wind shrieks constantly under the slate-gray sky. Elen herself is subject to increasingly frequent fits, shutting herself up alone in her room and cutting her arms as a primitive mode of bloodletting. Although Gwen seeks help from a local doctor, he requires payment for medicine, and the situation is made more difficult by the fact that Elen is holding out against the local lord’s effort to expand his empire by acquiring her land. When the women’s sheep suddenly die and their potatoes spoil, it might be his work—or the doing of some malignant force. The escalating mini-war between the magnate and the family leads to an act of stunning brutality that is implied to be inevitable given the callousness of the time and place. Worthington-Cox gives the helpless heroine a look of haunted desperation, and the film’s visuals add a Dickensian feel, but McGregor’s dilatory pacing makes for a film that is strikingly atmospheric but also narratively murky. A strong optional purchase. (F. Swietek)