MUBI

Belfast Film Festival 2024

Directed by: Christopher Andrews
Written by: Christopher Andrews
Run Time: 1 hour 45 minutes

Not dissimilar to Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s recent and acclaimed thriller, The Beasts (2022) – in which a farming couple becomes the victim of hostility from two other local farmers – Christopher Andrews’ debut, Bring Them Down also depicts an abundance of agriculture-based antagonism. However, rather than the idyllic Galician countryside that Sorogoyen’s Spanish-French co-production takes place in, Andrews’ film unfolds in the harsh hills of rural Galway, Ireland.

It follows Michael (Christopher Abbott), who lives and works on his family’s sheep farm, undertaking the majority of the responsibilities due to the declining health of his father, Ray (Colm Meaney). But when two of their best rams are found dead by Jack (Barry Keoghan), the son of a neighbouring farmer, it sets Michael on a dangerous path to find out the truth, one that will also force him to confront a dark secret of his own.

Andrews does not afford his audience the luxury of settling into his film gently, instead beginning Bring Them Down with an intense sequence detailing an event from Christopher’s past. This abrasive opening doesn’t just serve as an effective way of immediately grabbing viewers’ attention, but too offers them vital context for Christopher’s actions for much of the subsequent story. The violent tone established here is carried through the remainder of the film’s first act as the farmers’ feud gets underway in especially unpleasant fashion.

The plot’s nastiness can at times feel meaningless, but perhaps it’s this that makes Michael’s situation all the scarier; the senseless thuggery of it all. However, as the film’s writer as well as director, Andrews is intelligent enough to realise that presenting such repetitive, gratuitous intimidation and violence alone, could risk alienating his audience. So with a shift of perspective at the start of the second act he unlocks an entirely different response, allowing audiences a deeper understanding and intrigue into character motivations and the chain of events leading up to the horrible circumstances Michael now finds himself in.

This decision affords the film’s main stars, Christopher Abbott and Barry Keoghan (previously Paul Mescal and Tom Burke), equal billing as co-leads and both, unsurprisingly, are excellent. Connecticut-born Abbott dons a convincing Irish accent and demonstrates a confident grasp of the sections of Gaelic used within, appearing perfectly at home on the muddy hillsides and in the farmhouse kitchen that Micheal almost exclusively resides in. Having isolated himself from much of his community, Abbott succeeds in portraying his reclusive nature, taking refuge inside his chunky woollen knits that indicate he’s very much a man of the earth around him.

While in direct conflict to this more grounded existence, Keoghan’s Jack is far more unsettled, lacking as strong a sense of place. And while at first glance he might appear as nothing more than a violent thug, Keoghan – aided by Andrews’ thoughtful script – ensures that a more all-encompassing view of his character is eventually revealed.

The same could be assumed of Bring Them Down as a whole, that it’s just a mindless portrayal of violence. Yet, this rural Irish thriller is far more complex than its premise might first suggest, with its cinematic soil proving thematically rich and continuing to bear fruit. In many ways both of Andrews’ central characters are each other’s opposites, but they share one vital similarity: they are both a product of the dangerous culture they’ve been raised in. Both have irresponsible male influences in their lives, both are encouraged to act with violence and both are neglected the chance to deal with their own trauma. The violence was inevitable.

Hannah Peel’s haunting score would certainly suggest so. Crafting its sounds from natural, earthy instruments and materials, the most prominent of which being a skin drum that beats as if the men are marching into battle. They are as much at war with themselves as each other though, demonstrated perfectly in one scene where Keoghan superbly displays Jack’s reluctance to participate in one particularly horrific act of violence. While Abbott encapsulates Michael’s internal struggles throughout too, presenting the idea that these men have no idea how to resolve conflict with words, resorting instead only to their own reckless actions.

Jack’s mother, Caroline (Nora-Jane Noone) offers an alternative then. She’s constantly trying to get the men in her life to speak to her and talk about what’s really going on. Not only Jack’s mother, but also Michael’s ex-girlfriend, she represents the only real glimmer of hope in either of their stories, even if their situations seem entirely bleak. She’s a caring, nurturing figure that they’ve sadly been conditioned to keep at an arm’s length, rather than fully embrace – in turn, pushing her even further away.

So while on the surface Bring Them Down successfully operates as a rather clever and quite thrilling take on the genre, Andrews doesn’t rest on these laurels. Instead choosing to work his cinematic landscape more thoroughly, unearthing a worthwhile cautionary tale that warns against the dangerous cultures that rear rageful and violent young men. To do so in such a skilful manner in only his feature debut, Andrews emerges as quite the cinematic shepherd, confidently guiding his audience throughout.

Star Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★