Review of Wild Rose (2019) by Greatmartin — 09 Jul 2019

At one point in the movie an American says to Rose-Lynn, "I don't know what you just said but..." and that sums up a major problem as the Scottish accents of Jessie Buckley as Rose-Lynn, Julie Walters as her mother Marion and Sophie Okonedo as her employer Susannah are, in most of the film, indecipherable. The fact that the film is a by-the-numbers story of a woman having to choose between what she wants, which is to be a country singer at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, and her life and 2 children in Glasgow, helps overcoming the accents.

The story is also about the relationship between the 3 women which elevates the movie but it is Buckley's singing and her acting that puts this in a must-see category. With the screenplay by Nicole Taylor and the direction by Tom Harper the acting by the 3 women--men are very incidental to the film--is what sells this film.

Buckley is Irish while Walters and Okonedo are English so maybe that had to do something with the accents but even then Walters is superb, as always, putting over what she has to say and makes the dramatic impact she must while Okonedo makes you want for her to be your employer and backer.

Getting back to Jessie Buckley even if you aren't a country music fan, I'm not, she will make you one. Though from the opening she, getting out of prison, the neglecting of her children, her attitude towards her mother and her disdain of the men around her is not someone you would root for but by the end of the film you will be cheering for her.