(2004) On a rural road in England, Tamsin (Emily Blunt) on a white horse encounters Mona (Natalie Press), lying on the ground beside her motorless Honda bike, who says her name's actually Lisa. She lives with her older brother Phil (Paddy Considine) in The Swan pub, which Phil, having been in prison but converted to evangelical Christianity, has made over into a temple of prayer for his fellow worshippers of Jesus Christ.

The pair of teenagers begin a fond friendship after Mona's boyfriend Ricky, married with a kid, shags her one last time before dumping her. Leaving her brother, Mona goes to the old manor house (with creaky furniture) where she finds Tamsin in her room playing on her cello Saint-Saëns's "The Swan" from The Carnival of the Animals.

Employing a spare, minimalist soundtrack with natural sounds, director Paul Pavlikovsky, who co-wrote the screenplay with Michael Wynne from Helen Cross's novel, created a haunting romantic drama. Taking her new friend on a tour of the house, Tamsin pauses before the shut door of her sister Sadie's room, left like a shrine, she explains, exactly as it had been when Sadie died of anorexia.

The girl of wealth, privilege, and private schooling recommends reading Nietzsche ("God is dead") or Freud to Mona (mother deceased and no dad): "This is what's real, here and now." In contrast Mona tells Tam of her ambition: "I'm gonna get a job in an abattoir, work really hard, get a boyfriend who's like... a bastard, and churn out all these kids, right, with mental problems. And then I'm gonna wait for the menopause... or cancer."

Hiring a cab, Tam picks up Mona to drive out to the neighborhood where her dad's Porsche is parked in front of the house of his secretary/whore; she says her mother's off on a tour as an actress. Using a garden ornament, Mona breaks the window of the Porsche.

Back at the house while listening to a recording of Edith Piaf, Tam the fantasist tells Mona her version of the French chanteuse's life: "She was this marvelous Parisian woman who had such a wonderfully tragic life. She was married three times and each husband died in mysterious circumstances. The last one was a boxing champion, and she killed him with a fork. She didn't even go to prison because in France crimes of passion are forgiven."

Tam buys Mona a motor for her bike and gives her clothes, including Sadie's red dress. After experimenting sexually with each other and Mona's demonstrating how Ricky diddled her, Tam says, "Men like that should be castrated," and decides he needs to be taught a lesson.

As the girls are sunning themselves, Phil comes over, asking Mona to join his procession to raise the huge cross he's constructed on the hill above the village to claim back the valley for Christ; Tam asks if she would be welcomed. After the raising of the cross and Phil's publicly praying for his sister's deliverance, the girls go home to mock evilness, address questions to Sadie via a homemade Ouija board, enter the forbidden bedroom, and eat magic mushrooms to commune with the dead sister.

"We're going to spend the rest of our lives together," Tam vows to Mona, promising: "If you leave me, I'll kill you." The next time Phil comes over to see Mona, Tamsin leads him on about wanting to find the spiritual meaning missing from her life, coming close to seducing him before she bursts out laughing; he turns violent, removing Mona from the mansion back to the pub where he locks her inside her room. On the wall she draws Tam's portrait.

The climax and conclusion are appropriate - do not disappoint - to the psychological complexities developed.

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Copyright © 2009 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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