This quiet look at the confusion and pain of isolation is a strong first feature from Scott Graham but lacks originality.
With Shell, director and screenwriter Scott Graham transports his audience to the windy, isolated terrain of the Scottish Highlands in his first feature film, and he is impressively specific about the particular track of road on which his torturous emotional exposition takes place.
In the space of an hour and a half we only go maybe as far as a mile down the road from the petrol station run by the increasingly desperate 17 year-old Shell (Chloe Pirrie, niminated for Best British Newcomer this year) and her stifled, gruff father, Pete (Joseph Mawle). We meet a handful of the regulars who pass them by, including a couple who've hit a deer with their car and become temporary observers of the small life of this isolated odd pair who demonstrate a timeless bond intensified to a disturbing degree by their lack of interaction with others.
They don't appear to have internet or TV so are saved the onslaught of X factor but suffer a dearth of knowledge about the wider world and the opportunities for escape. Although, their use of the radio makes you feel like they choose their limitations and accept their fear of anything beyond their stagnant life. And the creation of their world in this film is at its best when the sound design overrides all else. With howling winds and a constant, cold whistle Graham makes the sky loom into a bright but hopeless morning from a lonely night and with only a few repetitions he conveys the endlessness of their existence.
One of the most astounding things about this film is what an anti-heroine Shell becomes. Her instincts and reactions are so different to what you might imagine for this narrative. She stays when others would leave and repeats her mistakes. She is forward where so many of us would be shy and shy when so many of us would take a chance. So watching her can, in some ways, be frustrating but it is also a reminder of how ill informed and instinctive she is.
Although this is a slow film and not original enough to warrant four stars, with Shell, Graham forms a story about our innateness and our need for taught interaction. Theories of urban isolation are a million miles away from this stark look at what it really is to be on your own.
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