*** Cinecenta Passes not accepted for VFF Films***

Christopher Abbott and Barry Keoghan star in Christopher Andrews’ brutally impressive, low-budget debut about two feuding farming families in rural Ireland. Bring Them Down, which had its world premiere at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, tells the story of two young men, trapped in a historical cycle of violence and inherited rage. Set in a bleak and remote west Ireland, Michael (Abbott) raises sheep on the family farm where he lives with his aging father Ray (played deftly by Colm Meaney). The father and son duo live together in relative solitude, in the aftermath of a gruesome accident, which saw Michael’s mother killed and his girlfriend with permanent facial scars. Michael’s girlfriend has since moved on, remarrying into a rival farming family.  Her wily son, Jack (Keoghan) is determined to reap revenge on the source of his mother’s pain. 

Much of the sadness that pervades the lives of our two central characters is left unspoken, escaping only through blackly comic violent acts (the sheep really don’t come out well!) and icy aggressions. Both Keoghan and Abbot carry this turmoil – of the modern young man unable to unravel stunted emotions – with profound and acute accuracy.  Accompanied by an off-kilter and pounding score, Andrews takes his audience on an intense exploration of human behaviour, and the tragedies of modern masculinity, that is at once painfully tragic and grimly funny. –JD