Review of A Country Called Home (2016) by Sarah B — 13 Jun 2016

A cinematic masterpiece, very touching, perfect pacing, great direction, great script, great casting, great cinematography, good score. Constantly unpredictable but believable script presents in a thoroughly sympathetic way the troubled family lives of its exclusively lower class characters in its stark flat and parched Texas plains landscape, which comes through as hauntingly ordinary or even dull as the characters themselves are.

Even if the people seem lost and wandering almost aimlessly through their lives, this highly artful and constantly engaging film is anything but aimless for sensitive viewers, but there won't be a big audience for it, except for the star, Imogen Poots, an extraordinarily gifted actor whose beautiful face and engagingly warm smile will rivet the attention even of many viewers who aren't attuned to cinematic art but only to superficial appeals.

This is her first role as a film's central character, and she lights it up as a major star, perfectly cast for the part, even though with high physical attractiveness that's not really needed for the role -- but which probably will be for many of the future ones she'll play.

This British actress plays very convincingly a small-town Texas young woman who is returning briefly to her childhood home to pay respects to the memory of her just-deceased alcoholic father. It's a performance that would be alien to the performer if she weren't a consummate actress --- which she apparently is.

But the real star here is the film's brilliantly gifted director, co-scriptwriter, Anna Axster -- a great director, who is worth following.