Emily Watson in God's Creatures Photo: A24
Directed by Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer, and written by Shane Crowley from an idea he co-wrote with the film’s producer, Fodhla Cronin O'Reilly, God’s Creatures centres on the fallout from an accusation. Shortly after her estranged son Brian O’Hara (Paul Mescal) returns home from Australia, Aileen (Emily Watson) is forced to choose between her moral sense of duty and protecting her only son, when Sarah (Aisling Franciosi), who she supervises at the seafood processing factory, accuses him of rape. Eileen chooses to lie to the police, and then her family begins to slowly unravel. Meanwhile, Sarah withdraws and is shunned by the tight knit community.
In conversation with Eye For Film, Davis and Holmer discussed building the mechanics of their story around breathing rhythms and replacing words with images. They also spoke about exploring oppressive structures that trap men and women alike,...
Directed by Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer, and written by Shane Crowley from an idea he co-wrote with the film’s producer, Fodhla Cronin O'Reilly, God’s Creatures centres on the fallout from an accusation. Shortly after her estranged son Brian O’Hara (Paul Mescal) returns home from Australia, Aileen (Emily Watson) is forced to choose between her moral sense of duty and protecting her only son, when Sarah (Aisling Franciosi), who she supervises at the seafood processing factory, accuses him of rape. Eileen chooses to lie to the police, and then her family begins to slowly unravel. Meanwhile, Sarah withdraws and is shunned by the tight knit community.
In conversation with Eye For Film, Davis and Holmer discussed building the mechanics of their story around breathing rhythms and replacing words with images. They also spoke about exploring oppressive structures that trap men and women alike,...
- 4/2/2023
- by Paul Risker
- eyeforfilm.co.uk
How did we get here?” Emily Watson asks, frustratedly. “Where the victims of a horrific crime aren’t believed and the perpetrators are protected?” In her new film God’s Creatures, the Oscar-nominated star of Breaking the Waves and Punch-Drunk Love plays Aileen, a seafood processor in rural Ireland whose son Brian (Normal People’s Paul Mescal) is accused by a local girl of rape. The residents of the small fishing town they live in rally around him. The accuser, on the other hand, is exiled. “This is baked into our institutions and how our society is structured,” Watson continues, forcefully now. “Somehow sexual assault doesn’t matter. Somebody breaks into your house? The police will sort you out in five minutes. If someone rapes your daughter… good luck!”
Watson has been an internationally acclaimed star and one of Britain’s very best actors for more than 25 years, but there’s still something mysterious about her.
Watson has been an internationally acclaimed star and one of Britain’s very best actors for more than 25 years, but there’s still something mysterious about her.
- 3/30/2023
- by Adam White
- The Independent - Film
After sweeping Metro Manila Film Festival awards with 7 wins, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actress, “Deleter”, Mikhail Red's first collaboration with Viva, went on to become one of the highest grossing films during the run of the festival.
Lyra works for an online content moderation company, where employees, known as deleters, deal with graphic content before it reaches online platforms, usually in an effort to prevent extreme sex and violence from getting to the screens of users. It seems, however, that the company is shady on a number of levels, as we watch employees staying in a bunkhouse, and Lyra receiving “calming pills” from her boss Simon, which justify how unfazed she is by the content she has to watch everyday. Things take a turn for the much worse when Eileen, a colleague of hers commits suicide, which gradually starts bringing up both Lyra's traumatic past and the actual nature of Simon,...
Lyra works for an online content moderation company, where employees, known as deleters, deal with graphic content before it reaches online platforms, usually in an effort to prevent extreme sex and violence from getting to the screens of users. It seems, however, that the company is shady on a number of levels, as we watch employees staying in a bunkhouse, and Lyra receiving “calming pills” from her boss Simon, which justify how unfazed she is by the content she has to watch everyday. Things take a turn for the much worse when Eileen, a colleague of hers commits suicide, which gradually starts bringing up both Lyra's traumatic past and the actual nature of Simon,...
- 3/28/2023
- by Panos Kotzathanasis
- AsianMoviePulse
The actor grew up in an alleged cult and was expelled after her explicit role in Breaking the Waves. She discusses method acting, the #MeToo movement and mixing work and family
Emily Watson had big plans to turn up for our interview looking immaculately made up, but then family members started getting sick and her morning fell apart. “When my husband’s ill, chaos descends,” she says, with a sigh. Despite this, she doesn’t seem ruffled. If anything, she is serene and calm, her skin glowing and those expressive blue eyes as piercing and soulful in life as they are on screen.
We meet at the BFI Southbank in London, a regular haunt of hers over the years, to talk about her new film God’s Creatures. Dressed in a short black dress, a black corduroy jacket and a black and white scarf, she has a gentle presence. In the film,...
Emily Watson had big plans to turn up for our interview looking immaculately made up, but then family members started getting sick and her morning fell apart. “When my husband’s ill, chaos descends,” she says, with a sigh. Despite this, she doesn’t seem ruffled. If anything, she is serene and calm, her skin glowing and those expressive blue eyes as piercing and soulful in life as they are on screen.
We meet at the BFI Southbank in London, a regular haunt of hers over the years, to talk about her new film God’s Creatures. Dressed in a short black dress, a black corduroy jacket and a black and white scarf, she has a gentle presence. In the film,...
- 3/20/2023
- by Ann Lee
- The Guardian - Film News
The tragic story and eventual downfall of Aileen Wuornos was told in shattering detail in "Monster," earning Charlize Theron the Academy Award for Best Actress for her stripped down portrayal of America's first known female serial killer. During a brutal spree of murders over the course of one year in 1989, Wournos turned the tables on her would-be attackers, killing seven men who had propositioned her for sex. Wuornos had gone through an abusive childhood and turned to sex work early on in her deeply-troubled life. Of course, these men didn't necessarily deserve their fate, but through her streak of killings, Wournos upended the classic serial killer structure where men usually turned unsuspecting women into their victims.
When director Patty Jenkins ("Wonder Woman") began trying to get "Monster" off the ground, the budget was only 1 million and no distributor was attached. Jenkins was a first-time writer and director who did manage...
When director Patty Jenkins ("Wonder Woman") began trying to get "Monster" off the ground, the budget was only 1 million and no distributor was attached. Jenkins was a first-time writer and director who did manage...
- 12/12/2022
- by Drew Tinnin
- Slash Film
Note: The following contains spoilers for “God’s Creatures” and a discussion about sexual assault.
“God’s Creatures” directors Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer felt an urgency to investigative the unspoken normalcies surrounding sexual assault in A24’s latest psychological drama.
“There were these questions that the script was posing that felt like questions we had been asking about how you negotiate these unspoken ‘normalcies’ that needs to be questioned,” Holmer told TheWrap during a recent interview. “It felt urgent to us to make.”
Set in an Irish fishing village, “God’s Creatures” reunites Aileen, played by Emily Watson, with her son, Brian, played by Paul Mescal, who left the area as a boy to move to Australia, and comes home a man seeking fresh start. Aileen is elated by the return of her handsome son and compromises her morals ever so slightly to ensure a smooth transition for Brian. The tides change too rapidly,...
“God’s Creatures” directors Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer felt an urgency to investigative the unspoken normalcies surrounding sexual assault in A24’s latest psychological drama.
“There were these questions that the script was posing that felt like questions we had been asking about how you negotiate these unspoken ‘normalcies’ that needs to be questioned,” Holmer told TheWrap during a recent interview. “It felt urgent to us to make.”
Set in an Irish fishing village, “God’s Creatures” reunites Aileen, played by Emily Watson, with her son, Brian, played by Paul Mescal, who left the area as a boy to move to Australia, and comes home a man seeking fresh start. Aileen is elated by the return of her handsome son and compromises her morals ever so slightly to ensure a smooth transition for Brian. The tides change too rapidly,...
- 10/1/2022
- by Loree Seitz
- The Wrap
Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer’s eerily effective God’s Creatures, starring Emily Watson, opens with an unexpected return. The son of Aileen O’Hara (Watson) has just come home, showing up in their tiny, Irish fishing village unannounced after some time away in Australia. It’s a somber occasion — a local fisherman has just drowned — but for Aileen, especially, this is a joyous moment. Brian (Paul Mescal, of Normal People fame) is something of a mama’s boy. He did not stay in touch while he was away, breaking his mother’s heart,...
- 9/30/2022
- by K. Austin Collins
- Rollingstone.com
The brackish waves of the Atlantic are a source of livelihood and peril for the inhabitants of a coastal Irish fishing village in God’s Creatures, the directorial work of Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer. Aileen O’Hara (Emily Watson) is the manager of a local fishing plant, tasked with sifting through daily catches of oysters and haddock on a whirring conveyor belt and preparing them for market. She is diligent yet warm, providing a maternal presence for many of her employees, namely young Sarah. During an ordinary shift, Aileen and a handful of other employees witness […]
The post “We Often Speak of the Film as a ‘Making-of-a-Ghost’ Story”: Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer on God’s Creatures first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
The post “We Often Speak of the Film as a ‘Making-of-a-Ghost’ Story”: Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer on God’s Creatures first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.
- 9/29/2022
- by Natalia Keogan
- Filmmaker Magazine - Blog
Emily Watson is an easy talker. After three decades in Hollywood (and plenty of adulation and awards to match), the British star could put on plenty of airs. Instead, she comes across as approachable, candid, and kind — even when she’s placed mere feet away from this interviewer’s snotty Covid test (negative!).
So when she admits that being first choice for a role can be “quite scary”— as she was for the leading part of Aileen in Anna Rose Holmer and Saela Davis’ Irish gothic “God’s Creatures” — you believe her, even though she became an Oscar-nominated actress with her very first on-screen performance in Lars von Trier’s “Breaking the Waves.”
“‘Why me? What is it about me? What is it in my bag of tricks that you are interested in?,” When directors pursue her, those are the questions she asks herself. For “God’s Creatures,” she went even further:...
So when she admits that being first choice for a role can be “quite scary”— as she was for the leading part of Aileen in Anna Rose Holmer and Saela Davis’ Irish gothic “God’s Creatures” — you believe her, even though she became an Oscar-nominated actress with her very first on-screen performance in Lars von Trier’s “Breaking the Waves.”
“‘Why me? What is it about me? What is it in my bag of tricks that you are interested in?,” When directors pursue her, those are the questions she asks herself. For “God’s Creatures,” she went even further:...
- 9/28/2022
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
“We’re all God’s creatures in the dark.” It’s a mysterious, yet resonant, sentiment, a pebble of wisdom about humanity that one might roll over again and again, worrying its surface. This line — which gives Anna Rose Holmer and Saela Davis the title of their intimate family drama “God’s Creatures,” set in a blustery Irish fishing village — is one of the life lessons Sarah has accrued in her young, tough life. She shares it, ruefully, with Aileen (Emily Watson), her friend and manager at a fish processing plant, over a cigarette.
Sarah is referring to her abusive ex Francie when she speaks to Aileen, but the opaque statement, which straddles the line between the dark and the divine, an insight at once profound, ambiguous, and cutting, becomes a prophecy as “God’s Creatures” evolves into a subtly striking suspense thriller.
In 2015, Holmer and Davis collaborated on the critically acclaimed and award-winning “The Fits,...
Sarah is referring to her abusive ex Francie when she speaks to Aileen, but the opaque statement, which straddles the line between the dark and the divine, an insight at once profound, ambiguous, and cutting, becomes a prophecy as “God’s Creatures” evolves into a subtly striking suspense thriller.
In 2015, Holmer and Davis collaborated on the critically acclaimed and award-winning “The Fits,...
- 9/27/2022
- by Katie Walsh
- The Wrap
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