By David Dent
Jonathan Zaurin’s searing follow up to his 2021 movie ‘Wyvern Hill’ aka ‘Hollow’ takes us into the heartland of broken Britain with its time shifting story of revenge.
Ten years after the murder of her father, Abigail (Suzanne Fulton) is still feeling the trauma of – and some of the blame for – what happened, with her lifestyle freefalling accordingly.
The person responsible for the murder (referred to as “the one who survived”) is about to be released from prison, which is a trigger for Abigail to pivot from grief to revenge; but it’s a plan not achieved easily.
In fact nothing is achieved easily in Zaurin’s film, if at all. Abigail’s world is a bleak one. She must negotiate gangs of unemployed men hanging about at entrances to underpasses, town buildings remain shut up, and the gloom of her home life is accentuated by the director (who also acted as cinematographer) filming in harsh black and white, colour being reserved for Abigail’s flashbacks and fantasies, and the side stories running through her narrative.
‘Derelict’ handles a number of different timescales intertwining and gradually revealing the story, from Abigail’s memories of happier times with her father and sister Rose, and gradually integrating the characters of brothers Matt (Michael Coombes), and cruel older sibling Ewan (Pete Bird). While Matt nurses ill-advised feelings for his gay friend James (Joe Nurse), Ewan picks up on this and exploits it, for reasons that eventually become clear. The violence in ‘Derelict’ is always just under the surface; characters can erupt at any moment, and their desolation and insecurity is palpable.
Revenge, when it comes, is as uncinematic as things get, but Zaurin manages to find redemption in the shreds of lives left in this ambitious and important film. Another success for a great UK filmmaker.
Derelict is on digital 1 September from Miracle Media and on Blu-ray 22 September from 101 Films.
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