Finnish director Klaus Härö’s English language debut is a late-life love story set on the picturesque western coast of Ireland, featuring fantastic turns from veteran actors James Cosmo and Brid Brennan. My Sailor, My Love is now playing in UK cinemas.
Cosmo, who has cropped up in everything from Highlander to Braveheart to Trainspotting over the years (he’s extremely Scottish, you see) is retired sea captain Howard, content to isolate himself from the rest of the world on the windswept Irish coast. His daughter, Grace (Catherine Walker), worries about his ability to take care of both himself and his house, and takes it upon herself to hire a housekeeper for him – that’s Annie, played by Brid Brennan, familiar to fans of Peaky Blinders. As anyone familiar with this sort of thing has come to expect, after a few terse interactions affection inevitably grows between the curmudgeonly old salt and his initially unwanted domestic help
You might think that you know how My Sailor, My Love goes from here – we’ve seen dozens of films about cranky old guys being redeemed by the love of a good woman in their later years. But Härö goes out of his way to subvert expectations. Something traumatic lurks in the past, and Grace’s growing resentment and jealousy over the relationship developing between her dad and his cleaner isn’t just rooted in her own crumbling marriage.
Beautifully shot on misty Achill Island and featuring nuanced, compelling performances from the entire ensemble (but especially Cosmo, one of God’s own character actors who really should have had a proper break out role by now), My Sailor, My Love is an emotionally resonant weepie that is sure to play well with the matinee crowd. It’s a quietly powerful meditation on guilt, regret, trauma, and redemption, beautifully written by screenwriters Jimmy Karlsson and Krisi Vikman.
