17/03/2022 - In her SXSW-awarded film, Northern Irish director Antonia Campbell-Hughes takes a look at men without women

In Antonia Campbell-Hughes’ It Is in Us All [+see also:
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film profile], which has just scooped a Special Jury Recognition for Extraordinary Cinematic Vision for its cast and crew at SXSW, Hamish (Cosmo Jarvis) is just not in the mood. Not in the mood for flirting with a nice lady handing him the keys to his rented vehicle, and not in the mood for revisiting his late mother’s hometown in Ireland. When he gets into a car accident that ends up costing a young boy his life, it’s not even that surprising – with Hamish, it really seems like some parts of him were already missing a long time ago, even before the administered meds started to kick in.

But there was another kid in the other car that day, 17-year-old Evan (Rhys Mannion), and something draws them together. It’s only natural – after all, they have experienced the same thing, the same fear. Trauma bonds people, and there have been many stories about it, also of the feel-good nature. This one swaps comfort for torment, however, as Hamish’s pain runs deep, baby. And while this new friendship, or fascination, brings him some solace at last, it doesn’t fix the real problem. It’s a bit like when he superglues his open wound. It may work for now, but in the long run, it’s probably not a good idea.

Campbell-Hughes (who also plays the mother of the deceased boy here) delivers a film about the kind of loneliness that feels contagious, surrounding Hamish with empty rooms and wide-open spaces where he still can’t breathe. It could be one of those tales in Haruki Murakami’s Men Without Women, really. There is a suggestion that, by looking for the traces of his late mother, he is trying to heal a scar that has been bothering him for way too long. Told that he is “a very lucky man” when waking up in a hospital bed, he is not convinced. Hamish already knows the extent of his unhappiness, and now so does Evan, insisting that he looked right at him before the crash and had time to swerve out of the way. But he didn’t.

It’s all so enigmatic that it’s up to Jarvis to invoke some concrete emotions, and he does. An intriguing actor, it’s odd that he hasn’t yet enjoyed a similar career trajectory to his fellow Lady Macbeth [+see also:
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trailer
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film profile] breakthrough Florence Pugh, for example. It’s fun to be reminded of what he can do, going from a “wounded animal” to a sad man, hanging around young boys as they dance to what sounds like an instrumental version of Christina Aguilera’s “Genie in a Bottle”, unless that was all a dream. It’s not entirely clear what he is after – is his interest of a sexual nature, or does he feel more at ease around them, simply because he wouldn’t mind re-living his own youth? Also, when he needs to tend to his injuries at home, it’s pure physical comedy: duct tape plays a much bigger part in this film than poor Claes Bang, stuck in a weird video-call cameo as Hamish’s dad.

What Campbell-Hughes doesn’t deliver story-wise, she makes up for in mood. “Every creative element of It Is in Us All, from its editing and music to its performances and cinematography, works in tandem to craft a haunting atmosphere,” argued the jurors at SXSW, and it’s just a shame that she suddenly decides to spell things out at the end. When you have a secret, you really should keep it.

It Is in Us All was produced by Ireland’s Pale Rebel Productions.