Dirty Boy
Outside the mountain air and the water of the lake are crisp and clear, but inside Isaac’s room is dark and dusty, the window boarded up, the walls bare save for crucifixes, dark and askew, his table filled with bottles of pills, his only company his memories of a woman singing nursery rhymes and his imagination, his other self, Frankie, asking the question of who is driving the bus today and who is the passenger, who will forcefully grab the wheel and what direction will they steer?
Adopted son of Walter and Verity Wentworth, his better-behaved siblings are Hope, Grace, Mercy and Joy, Peter, Michael and John, all similarly orphaned, abandoned or unwanted, and the rules of the house are deference and strict obedience, Verity enforcing discipline while Walter sips his cup of tea, only rarely stepping in with the harshest punishment when he is challenged directly, the First Rural Asylum of the Unfortunates a happy place of peace and harmony.
Set in a strange place in an uncertain time, the costumes and lack of modern technology amongst Austrian peaks and meadows making Dirty Boy seem like a prelude to the harsh trials of The Crucible to the distorted tune of The Sound of Music, writer and director Douglas Rao has brought together under one sloped and overhanging roof Stan Steinbichler, The Wicker Tree’s Graham McTavish and Hounds of Love’s Susie Porter as Isaac, Walter and Verity, their family bound by faith and fear of reprisals.
A bright-eyed enigma, forced to take medication which calms him even though drugs are frowned upon otherwise, Isaac asks questions about himself in a place where curiosity is an offence to the established order, Honor Gilles’ Hope apparently his only ally, her siblings smiling with barely concealed glee when she is also punished for her uppity manners, the children kept purposely uneducated, pliant, cut-out dress-up dolls to serve and be decorative.
Recalling Franklyn in its depiction of a mentally ill protagonist whose skewed perceptions give them perspective denied to those who willingly drink the Kool Aid, Dirty Boy feels like a beautifully filmed collage of ideas which never comes together as a whole, Isaac’s split-off personality an embodiment of his rage in response to forgotten trauma, but with clues and evidence left lying around for easy discovery the ride is followed by a less-than-graceful dismount.
The folk horror trappings of masks and antlers worn by the brethren seemingly there for the sake of it rather than guiding or serving the story, the relationship between fractured Isaac and distant Walter is less interesting than the two women, opposites tied together, Hope’s covet acts of resistance more likely to succeed as they do not draw attention, and Verity, the truth of her prim piety that it is self-serving and vindictive, a malevolent performance which calls to mind Weapons’ Amy Madigan as the ruthless Sister Iris of Carnivàle.
Dirty Boy is currently touring the UK and will be available for digital download from October
