CALM WITH HORSES directed by Nick Rowland (UK -Ireland, 2019)
“I’m told I was a violent child” is the opening line in a voiceover in this bold and bruising tale of toxic masculinity.
The narrator is Douglas ‘Arm’ Armstrong , an ex-boxer, now employed as an enforcer for an unscrupulous criminal family. The setting is rural Ireland in a claustrophic community where conflict and violence are the accepted ways of life.
Douglas is a physically imposing presence, lumbering from scene to scene like a wounded beast. His handler is the manipulative Dymphna (Barry Keoghan) who plies him with drugs much as a dog owner might seek to placate a doberman pinscher. Continue reading
