![]() There is witchcraft involved here, alright, but it’s not a simple matter of good versus evil – it’s much more uncomfortable than that. The film doesn’t leave much room for hope, but it does present viewers with a shifting moral landscape in which motivations are tricky to pin down. Things get worse, however, when two local children go missing and the villagers are convinced that Mary must be responsible. ![]() She speaks of a mysterious man who once took her out dancing on the moss.įor all her experience, Cathy is disquieted, but it’s her job to make rational assessments and resist giving way to prejudice. She asks very personal questions, obliging Cathy to be firm about her professional boundaries. And then there’s Mary herself (Derbhle Crotty), her face and hands dirty, her long dark hair wild and tangled, her eyes sharp. The kitchen is filled with branches, fragments of plants and jars full of dried or pickled items. Inside, Cathy shivers: there’s no modern heating system. Mary’s house looks like something organic, clinging low to the ground, its pale walls stained by the encroachment of damp and fungus. It’s in the dark earth obscured by low-growing foliage where traps might be hidden, and in the moss that clings to everything. It’s in the gnarled and twisted branches of the trees, the thick, dark foliage overhead. Everything about the place looks ominous. Driving down to a sleepy little village to keep track of a fiftysomething woman seems likely to be easier work, but director Lynne Davison isn’t about to let viewers relax. Is she really a danger to anyone else? Parole officer Cathy Madden (Dierdre Mullins) is used to dealing with young men who will almost certainly reoffend, and in the opening scenes we see that she has to reckon with physical risks in the course of her job. She killed her husband after apparently receiving horrific injuries at his hands, and she still bears the scars. In a prison system founded on the idea that people can change during their incarceration, rehabilitation into the community eventually happens even to killers, and at first glance the case of ‘bloody’ Mary Laidlaw, no matter how much her neighbours hate her, might attract some sympathy.
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