Red Riding
Life has not been easy for Redele Riding, her mother barely able to take care of herself let alone a teenage daughter, largely left to fend for herself, withdrawn and blunt, finding it difficult to make friends and her dislike of her teachers reciprocated; when Scarlet dies of an overdose, with no other immediate family the only alternatives offered to her by social services are to go into the care system or to reach out to her estranged grandmother.
Unexpectedly, while Lady Penelope is surprised to hear from Red she makes her home open to the grandchild she has never met, a Highland mansion of dust and portraits and the Riding Estate which has been in the family two hundred years, Red finding herself enrolled in Greypelt Academy, named for her great-grandfather, riding her mother’s bike to town but warned never to leave the path or enter the woods, and concerned at the number of missing locals.
The directorial debut of Craig Conway, Victoria Tait is the titular Red Riding in writer Peter Stylianou’s modern reimagining of Little Red Riding Hood, the welcoming smile of grandma Lady Penelope (Lynsey Beauchamp) practiced so as not to show her teeth, groundsman Malcolm and maid Mary (Bill Fellows and Jenny Quinn) instead acting as enforcers while the real bite lies with Thomas (Ian Whyte), the wild man of the woods Red inevitably encounters on her peregrinations.
Conway better known as an actor in The Descent and Doomsday, while his former director Neil Marshall serves as executive producer here the film is no Dog Soldiers, a walk through the woods at the pace of The Company of Wolves though lacking the layers of style, imagery and storytelling of Neil Jordan’s adaptation of Angela Carter’s own interpretation of the same fairy tale, the suggestion from Andy (Jack McEvoy) that his cousin Ewan (Michael Tominey) uses old folklore to cope with the loss of his mother an interesting idea never developed.
What might have worked if presented through a dreamlike haze instead offered as realism, drug deaths, institutionalised disenfranchisement, formalised abuse, Red Riding is let down by a script heavy on foreshadowing and low on logic, from the mansion of family secrets replete with scowling servants, the missing persons posters which plaster the red telephone box, the J K Rowling naming conventions, and the locals with a cache of weapons trying to keep a low profile yet happy to start a rumble for an outsider.
Lady Penelope’s perplexing approach perhaps a result of her own confusion over her goals, hoping to reclaim the last of the bloodline into the family but having Red beaten rather than tempting her with comfort, kindness and security she has never known, frustrated that Thomas has eluded her all these years when not only he is easily located and lured but she predictably owns the local police, happy to look the other way, Red Riding is a trail of breadcrumbs through the trees, the path ahead apparent and easy to follow but offering little sustenance.
Glasgow Film Festival continues until Sunday 8th March
