The Incomer | Official Film Trailer<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\nPOSITIVES<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Very few filmmakers have the artistic temerity or creative tenacity to elicit something that is equally thought-provoking as it is affectionately gentle, and while The Incomer definitely shows the worn and weathered signs of an audaciously ambitious directorial debut for Paxton, it nevertheless finds quirkily zany and nobly endearing ways into the hearts of its adoring audience, delivering a whimsically enigmatic crowd-pleaser that zeroes in on the irreplicable power of human connection. Being that this is a story of isolation between two sets of characters, Paxton excels in articulating the societal loneliness that unavoidably stems from their respectively repetitive situations, with the brotherly duo of Isla and Sandy feeling so ferally instinctual as a result of their societal disconnect, while Daniel feels like the often ignored outcast at a redundantly thankless job that takes advantage of him, and it’s in this kinetic link where they find commonality despite the conditions of their lives feeling so vastly different, allowing much of Paxton’s intended direction to casually sift through the awkwardness of their undesirable interactions, which he paints with the most absurdist brand of off-putting humor that so much of the movie’s integrity and appeal rests directly on. For my personal tastes, I will say that the humor doesn’t always fire on all cylinders, but when it does work it relishes in the effortless brand of deadpan humor that Wes Anderson has made a storied career off of, accommodated by abrupt editing techniques and an undeterred level of commitment from his decorated trio of actors to maintain limitless ingenuity where anything can and often does feel possible in a substantially layered screenplay. While Paxton’s direction truly brings these characters to life with their warm and gentle charms, it’s his writing that might’ve ultimately won me over in the uniqueness that he brings to the table, as the narrative casually sifts through Scottish folklore that not only bears a striking relevance to the imaginative disposition that entails the loneliness of the characters, but also is realized with beautifully intoxicating hand-drawn monochromatic animation that brings the wondrous nature of these tales to life while accommodating the aforementioned comedic dependency of Paxton’s execution. As a result, the animated sequences certainly contextualize the heritage of both the characters and the island, which conveys a historical insight on the background of the siblings without directly halting the storytelling dead in its tracks to do so, but beyond that also delves subconsciously into the psychology of these characters, in ways that prioritize their wants and needs without deliberately spelling it out for the audience in exposition, instead relying heavily on the bountiful merits of these layered performances to linger in the nuances of their humanistic instincts. On that account, the trio of Gleeson, Rankin, and O’Rourke ignite so much personality and limitless charisma to the magnitude of their indulging portrayals, particularly in the naturalized lived-in chemistry between the sibling islanders, that each convey such imprinted influence over their isolated time away from the outside world. Rankin smoothly balances intense naivete and sharp intelligence in her ferocious protectiveness over the island, allowing her a firm grip over the emotional center of the story, and O’Rourke, while enveloped in his own childlike innocence and unhinged adventurism, thrives most effectively at maintaining the healthy consistency necessary to Paxton’s humorous dependency, appraising bickering banter between the two that serves as the underlining emphasis for thirty years of exclusivity to one another. As for Gleeson, while it might not be a role that is as opportunistically expressive as his duo of dazzling co-stars, he perfectly encapsules a meekly awkward side of his intrusive mainland council that exceptionally anchors the film’s absurdly whimsical tone, providing a fearfully overwhelmed and gently sincere straight man whose advantageous knowledge proves a daunting dilemma for the inevitability of his mission, where once more the quietly understated side of Gleeson’s registry holds its own against the energetic personalities that he continuously clashes with. On top of all of this, the authenticity of the atmospheric engagement is on full display with on-site photography of Caithness, Scotland serving as a formidable backdrop for the isolated peril of its characters, providing striking scenic splendor for Patrick Golan’s rustic cinematography, that texturally feels like it emanated from somewhere deep in 70’s cult cinema. The reason for this is obviously among the stark and rugged beauty of the articulated landscapes, adorning a worn and weathered appeal to housing structures that convey the melancholic ghosts of the island’s past, but also the claustrophobic confines of the interior shots illustrating the peeling walls and worn furnishings of the production’s set designs, inscribing a lived-in kind of depth to the atmosphere that feels frozen in time, where the atmospheric dust feels resonant without the imagery focusing directly on it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NEGATIVES<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As previously indicated, I did find a healthy amount of laughs from Paxton’s overly comedic material, but it’s in those ineffective moments that grow more consistent into the movie’s second half that detriments extensively on its overall consistency, specifically in the try-hard emphasis of Paxton’s shall we say immature material that doesn’t correlate as seamlessly to the integrity of the established tone, bringing back shades of Taiki Waititi, who steps on the stakes of any situation to institute an inappropriate laugh at the most telling moments. This is especially the case during the movie’s recontextualized ending, where instead of a grippingly realistic conflict that tests the bonds of the siblings and their island incomer accordingly, it instead becomes this ‘Revenge of the Nerds’ kind of action-articulated satire that feels both ridiculous and illogical to even the expressive tendencies of the script’s creativity, feeling like a movie that didn’t necessarily jump the proverbial shark as much as it rocketed over it. This obviously creates some jarring tonal shifts between this and a final scene that embodies the aforementioned sentimentality of Paxton’s first half writing, without any indication that such a steep extreme was coming, and while it might feel temporarily entertaining for how it deviates so remarkably from the rest of the film, the lack of impact from its enacted energy makes it feel like an afterthought to the film’s more meaningful ending, proving that too much of a good thing can oversaturate the appeal of the material. Speaking of the ending, the script is unable to effectively evade much of the manifested predictability from the marketing trailers that I experienced in the months leading up to the film’s release, where the lack of exploratory avenues writes itself into the kind of corner that feels entirely unavoidable. When you really think about it, the film has two options, where either Daniel comes to live with the siblings permanently, or the siblings uproot to the mainland seeking a new way of living, and while one of these two obviously transpires by the end of the movie’s 97-minute runtime, the lazily lackadaisical lack of method that it attempts to deviate from that expectation is nothing short of transparent to the movements of the storytelling, leaving very few legitimate surprises to a film with so much artistic ambition to its creativity. Finally, while one half of the established dynamic in the siblings receives an overwhelming majority of the focus to their backstories, the Daniel side of things feels less influential to the magnitude of the movie’s thematic exploration, specifically as a result of a rushed introduction and underexplored societal parallels that keeps the film from fully realizing the magnitude of its limitless potential. On the former, I definitely don’t think enough about Daniel’s life is coherently articulated during the opening act to motivate a means of escape from such a life of tedium, with merely only a singular scene paid to illustrate his outsider status among his employees, and nothing in the way of his home life to echo it any further, and while the latter occasionally taps into crucial aspects like storytelling that aren’t as important on the mainland as they feel imaginatively immersive on the island, there’s not enough profoundness in those magnified measurements to make it feel thought-provoking to the miscommunication of the characters, where so much introspective insight could be lifted from an audience interpreting how trivial our way of life feels compared to siblings who live with less, leaving the lingering of its life lesson feeling a bit unregistered between the one-sided parallels of character interaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
OVERALL
The Incomer is a charmingly tender kind of warm-hearted comedy that not only conveys the invigorating impulses of human connection at its most intimately alleviating, but even further than that a sentimentally sincere love-letter to the ideal that home is who you’re with, rather than where you are. While the film’s overly comedic try-hard material will land inevitably inconsistent to varying audiences, the optioning of monochromatic animated sequences and subconscious sea creatures prove a dastardly daring directorial debut for Louis Paxton, featuring the right slice of Scottish soul food that goes down smoothly<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My Grade: 7.1 or B-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Directed By Louis Paxton Starring – Domhnall Gleeson, Gayle Rankin, Grant O’Rourke The Plot – On a remote Scottish Island, Isla (Rankin) and brother Sandy (O’Rourke) live a normal life hunting seabirds, chatting to mythic creatures and defending their isle from Incomers. Their world is overturned with the arrival of Daniel (Gleeson), a lonely and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[16,21,24],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9954"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9954"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9956,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9954\/revisions\/9956"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/thefilmfreak.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}