Review of God's Own Country (2017) by C J — 02 May 2018

I liked the movie, despite its raw grittiness. Having said that, I'm surprised the writer/director hasn't been sued for outright plagiarism. I coincidentally watched a Spanish movie from 2009 called 'Ander' a week before I saw this movie, and Scene to scene it is nearly identical.

The opening scene with long shot on the old farmhouse, the sex scene in the bathroom, the vomiting, the closeted gay farmer with aging parents, the migrant who comes to help the farm and falls in love with the farmer, the migrant admiring how beautiful the country is, etc., etc., etc.

The only difference is that Anders is set in Spain and the migrant is Bolivian, and God's Own Country is set in England and the migrant is Romanian. Even the scene with the parent on their deathbed and the migrant tidying up the farmhouse and fixing dinner is identical. If the director/writer didn't intentionally plagiarize it, he did so unconsciously. The similarities are too many to be coincidental. Or did the writer/director get permission to adapt Ander script? If so, no acknowledgement I could find was given in the credits.