For Those in Peril (2013): Difficult Scottish drama in a minefield of styles (Review)

Not to be confused with the Ealing film of the same name, Paul Wright’s 2013’s Feature debut For Those in Peril is more of an amalgamation of Baltasar Kormakur’s The Deep and Thomas Vinterberg’s The Hunt than it is a call back to Ealing. George Mackay stars as Aaron, teenager and sole survivor of a tragic fishing boat accident. The reception he gets upon return is both frosty and antagonistic, with the community quizzing him on what happened that night and the villagers believing that no-one should’ve survived. As well as the hostility and his persistently decaying emotional health, Aaron refuses to accept his brother’s (Michael (Jordan Young)) death, taking him into deep despair.

On exterior values alone, For Those in Peril owes a debt to melancholic social realist films of the 1990s. Most of the film sees the present-day narrative edited together with home video footage. Not only that, but there is also footage presented from a news report on the boating tragedy complete with naturalistic voice-overs commentating on the event and its fallout. Then there is the third trait where we are graced by erratic horror-inspired visuals. This is a strange, very difficult to pin down film.

Performance ensures that the film hangs together. George Mackay may have a role that is every bit as one-dimensional as the aforesaid Tsukamoto films, but within those confines, he manages to convince with his Scottish accent and his portrayal of a lost soul. Aaron may have returned from that boating accident in body, but his mind died along with his brother and it’s in that fragility that George Mackay soars.

Most of the remaining cast is filled with unknowns with the exceptions in Katie Dickie (Game of Thrones & Red Road) and Michael Smiley (The World’s End & A Field in England). Dickie plays Aaron’s Mum, where she brings real lived-in qualities to her role and the resolute belief that her story will continue long after the credits roll. Those plaudits equally belong to Paul Wright and his script, but the truth remains that few actresses could bring Cathy to screen so believably. Michael Smiley has a small role as the Father of Michael’s (Aaron’s Brother) Girlfriend. In his brief screen time, he is an eminently watchable presence, for all the wrong reasons – a mark of a great actor.

Measuring the components in isolation cannot fail to make For Those in Peril anything but a distinguished debut, but it’s not that simple. The scenes with Mackay and Nichola Burley (his brother’s girlfriend) are lightning conductors for problems with the script, while obviously intentionally difficult scenes what sells their shortcoming is that these moments are shrugged off far too easily. These scenes and their dialogue simply don’t relate to each other believably. You could write this confusion off as an outward expression of Aaron’s mental anguish, but that is far too convenient to explain away this lapse.

By a similar token, we have the final few minutes. It was commented on earlier that many different genre styles are assimilated, yet in this final moment, Wright introduces a haphazard conclusion giving life to a local fairy-tale that Aaron soliloquies throughout. Aaron’s anxieties as presented as real, cutting to credits a few frames earlier would have been all the ambiguity needed to make this ending connect, what we have here is a little silly for a film that takes itself this seriously.

For those in Peril is perfectly cast both behind the camera and on centre stage, having a producer from Berberian Sound Studio and an actor from Kill List & A Field in England ties Paul Wright’s directorial debut in with a school of British directors that are taking left-field approaches to much more traditional genre productions. Joining that school, it’s genuinely fascinating to see what doors will be opened by this award-winning debut.

Thanks for reading our review of For Those in Peril

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