Because same-sex affairs on the screen are so rare (even with the advent of the highly successful "Brokeback Mountain", which curiously broke very little cinematic ground), one is apt to grant a wide berth to any drama attempting to seriously depict gay relationships. "God's Own Country" from the UK, while well-made and acted, just misses; it isn't absorbing enough either dramatically or emotionally to pack the wallop one may be waiting for. Rough-hewn, belligerent young man named Johnny, the son of sheep farmers in Yorkshire, parties all night and is often brought home stinking drunk; his classmates have all moved on to college, and he resents the farm, the hard work and his small-minded parents. But this thick kid with the plain, blank face has a surprising secret: he occasionally picks up young men in town for quick, anonymous sex. When a handsome Romanian, currently employed at a potato mill in Scotland, is temporarily hired to help herd the sheep and build a stone border wall, the two men barely seem to take notice of one another until an angry confrontation breaks the ice (Johnny gets on the new worker's bad side by calling him derogatory names, such as "gypsy"). I wasn't convinced that a sexual relationship could develop between these two stubborn, non-verbal men, but that's the scenario writer-director Francis Lee and his actors have delivered. The milieu (too close to "Brokeback Mountain" for comfort) is vividly depicted--if filthy, exhausting work on a Yorkshire farm happens to be your field of study. The dramatic story arc comes rather belatedly, when Johnny realizes he is capable of actually feeling something for another man besides lust. That's a terrific lesson to teach--and it seems it must be taught again and again to each new generation--but these verbose characters (in their freezing cold, muddy surroundings) literally never warm up. Lee comes close to getting a bloom on his rose at the very end--consequently the strongest portion of the picture. **1/2 from ****
Review of God's Own Country
