Howard (James Cosmo), the Irish widower and retired sea captain of Klaus Haro’s bittersweet drama “My Sailor, My Love,” is livid that his daughter has employed a good-natured housekeeper named Annie (Brid Brennan), to disturb his seclusion. At first, the grump does his finest to scare off the invader. “By no means darken my door once more!” he thunders old-fashionedly, as if he’s subconsciously conscious that the writers Kirsi Vikman and Jimmy Karlsson are drawing on centuries of affection tales about savage males and civilizing ladies. The manufacturing designer John Hand has even labored in a nod to the rose from “Magnificence and the Beast.”
The curveball is that after speeding the romance (the brute is tamed in every week!), Haro shifts his consideration again to the daughter, Grace (Catherine Walker), who’s unfairly, however understandably, aggrieved. Her father’s all the time handled her cruelly — how dare he be form to another person?! Grace’s resentment is an astute twist. Think about Disney’s singing teapot enrolling in primal scream remedy, besides when Grace attends a assist group for ladies who’ve given an excessive amount of, she will be able to’t set free her steam.
Life, and the movie’s costume design, haven’t been honest to Walker’s self-sacrificing miserablist. (When can we cease dressing this type of character in wan beige and headache-inducing braids?) Each one in every of her scenes is an indignity overemphasized by a strings and piano rating that should ease up. The painful dynamic is credible; the dialogue not a lot. Nonetheless, the actors are in full command of our empathy, particularly Brennan’s gray-haired caretaker who, when she cracks open her coronary heart, appears to glow from inside.
My Sailor, My Love
Not rated. Operating time: 1 hour 43 minutes. In theaters.
