Aileen (Emily Watson) is delighted when her estranged son, Brian (Paul Mescal), suddenly returns home to their small fishing town on the coast of Ireland.  While the mother rejoices, the same cannot be said about the rest of the town, namely Sarah (Aisling Franciosi), an old high school flame of Brian’s that has since grown cold.  Aileen’s instinct to protect her son, however, will be tested as she helps him reestablish the family oyster farms through any means necessary to keep him around, but the longer he stays in town the more some dark secrets begin to bubble up from his past. 

God’s Creatures is an adult drama directed by Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer from a Shane Crowley script adapted from Fodhla Cronin O’Reilly’s original story.  Premiering at Cannes Film Festival, the adult drama was released by A24 and the film feels like a call back to the distributor’s humble beginnings with releases like J.C. Chandor’s A Most Violent Year (2014), Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden’s Mississippi Grind (2015), and Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire’s A Prayer Before Dawn (2017).  These simple yet shattering stories were already scarce to be seen pre-pandemic, and since then they have found themselves mostly regulated straight-to-streaming where, despite the wide accessibility, they can easily get overlooked for the flashier works.  God’s Creatures is certainly no exception to any of that but this feel-bad family drama holds in its 100 minutes some powerhouse performances from the entire ensemble cast that will haunt all those who happen upon it. 

Mescal enters into the film shortly after it opens, coming in without fanfare or notice during the funeral of a fisherman who died at sea.  He captures the first act with undeniable energy, but Chayse Irvin’s camera and the haunting, atmospheric score from Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans frames the prodigal son with a hint of danger, yet also a bit of allure. What Crowley’s script does smartly is, that while we know there is a dark past simmering just underneath the surface, he never comes outright and says why Brian fled to Australia or what happened after Aileen left him and Sarah at the bar one night shortly after his return. A drama through and through, audiences can easily put the pieces together, but we are thankfully spared the more gruesome details of the sexual assault that is eventually confirmed through a brief deposition and trial. It makes a heavy film a little more palpable while not smoothing out the burrs of the tragedy, and like a horror movie, oftentimes our imaginations can create a scarier monster than a filmmaker ever could and by not spelling out the details of Brian’s crime, Crowley allows audiences to fill in the blanks and make him out to be the worst possible devil imaginable, unique to each audience member. 

Though Mescal controls the first act, God’s Creatures quickly realigns itself to be Watson’s film once the framework for the narrative is set. The film follows her descent and the darkening of her own morals as she strives to protect Brian so as not to anger him, but with each little lie and transgression, the weight of guilt compounds on her until it becomes too much to handle. Watson adeptly navigates the various layers of the narrative Crowley constructed. The most interesting thing about her role in the film is that she is clearly on track headed for disaster, but her performance is captivating and the turmoil she experiences is clearly evident and we can not help but be drawn into her tragic spiral. Maybe it is because her intentions come from a place of a mother’s love that Aileen’s actions do not immediately repulse the audience, or that a generous reading of the film can allow for some ignorance on Aileen’s part of her son’s behavior, but whatever the salve may be, it is undeniable that Watson gives an incredible performance of a woman just trying to keep the family together no matter the cost to her own psyche. While the familiar dynamic does not quite align for an Adam and Eve-type reading of the film as the title may initially suggest, in the third act of the drama, Aileen’s eyes are opened to the sins around her and she, in a final moment of power as the god of her domain, casts out the sinner from the garden and does not heed his cries for mercy. Imah, Imah, Lama Sabachthani? 

God’s Creatures is a simple story teased and spread to its absolute limits while never overstaying. Crowley’s carefully constructed script, almost underwritten, it nevertheless keeps audiences informed of what is going on while never inundating them with tragedy, and while the film never leans so far into melodrama, it expertly operates in a bleak world; a desaturated and leaden cousin to Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy’s Blow the Man Down (2019). With craft and technical departments all working in perfect harmony with one another, the film takes on a haunting tone as the camera captures the foggy mornings and the dark, swirling waves over the remains of the oyster cages and abandoned dories, chewed up by the waves of a storm since passed. The B-roll of this world reflects the scars left behind on a community plagued by a tragedy. Everything about the film is ominous and foreboding, and the chill sinks into the hearts and the bones of the audience as if they were standing on those same cold shores with the wind and the waves around them, but there is still a beauty to the landscapes captured. These characters, left to their own devices, away from the noise of the big cities, sin has still seeped itself into this small-knit community, and the sickness will not stop until the penance is paid.