(107 minutes) directed and written by Michael Pearce
This, for the first 90 minutes, is a Jersey-set did-he-do-it thriller about a teenage girl whose family righteousness, snobbery and control take her passionately into the arms of a bad boy poacher. There are echoes of Lady Chatterley, with the complication that the police suspect him of a series of murders of teenage girls. Home-tutored Moll meets the slightly older Pascal when she’s abandoned her own 18th birthday party, angered that her self-centred elder sister has hijacked it, and he’s rescued her from a sexual assault after she’s spent the night dancing at a club. This is all socially and emotionally perceptive, well-plotted, absorbing, and has a stand-out central performance from Jessie Buckley. The obedient, dutiful chorister, thoughtful and increasingly independent and bold, moves in with Pascal, stands by him when he’s arrested, and lies for him.
