Some thoughts (contains spoilers)
I caught this on Film4 last night after spotting it on the Radio Times website. It sounded interesting from the brief description given. But as there was no star rating supplied, I thought I'd better look up a review of it elsewhere first just to ensure that I'd not be completely wasting my time.
The review I found on the Channel 4 website was praising, and whilst I didn't read any spoilers, one sentence remained with me: "It's the sort of film with an impact that will be impaired by even the barest description of the narrative".
OK. Fair enough. Firstly, the good points. It's very well acted and well shot (the outdoor scenes are particularly beautiful). The set up of the film is also interesting and different which is always nice to see. The various banalities spoken between the two characters were fairly well scripted and delivered in an engaging way. And the atmosphere created helped to make the film eerie throughout. The plot in principle was also delicious (pun intended).
Now for the not so good. I saw it coming. Well, a fair chunk of it. Admittedly, this may just have been me and was possibly influenced by the sentence in that review. Here was my thought process...
OK, so we've got two characters thrown together in a bird hide. One's an obsessed middle aged birdwatcher who's a bit geeky and socially inept but has some endearing qualities about him. The other is a slightly younger man who's fairly laddish in terms of behaviour and interests, and who is ambiguously implied to be either dangerous or to have performed some horrible murderous act. The film goes by for a while. Because of the perceived dullness in proceedings, there's obviously going to be more to the story than meets the eye. It's already been "given away" that there's danger in the air as we've seen the deadly flashbacks and the younger man appears vaguely threatening to the birdwatcher. If the younger man was on the run after committing murder then what would be the point of giving this away so early in the film? No, there's more to the story. What?
My first thought: Role reversal. The birdwatcher is obsessive, awkward, short tempered (although he keeps this to himself) and is estranged from his ex-wife, who he "curiously" keeps a photo of by his side. Infact, he probably suits the psychopath bill more than the younger man! Jokingly and perhaps worryingly for myself, when the birdwatcher offered the paste sandwiches, I thought they were probably human flesh. Paste is a peculiar term when not preceded by some other food type. Anyway, I didn't seriously consider the cannibal route until the actual reveal at the end which was a nice semi-surprise.
I've just realised how much I've written, so I'll try to make my point now. The role reversal just seemed too obvious and over-elaborate when judged against the first three quarters of the film. Yes, it's a clever idea. But for me, the film had already given you most of the clues to work it out for yourself much sooner. The birdwatcher's personality traits, the cliched photo of his ex-wife, she leaving him for another man and mocking him to boot, his job history at the meat factory, the radio call from the police describing a "white male" on the run. This lessened the impact of the big reveal which could almost have been iconic. Perhaps what I'm saying is that the film wasn't ambiguous enough in the first three quarters, or maybe it should even have led you more down an alley to get a bigger pay off. If you've worked it out, I don't think the characterisation and plot devices are sufficient enough to sustain your enjoyment of the film.
On a good note, I hadn't worked it all out. The younger man being suicidal was a decent ploy. The idea of the birdwatcher keeping the younger man as an audience for his big finale was something I hadn't fully considered. The face-off ending was tense and satisfactory enough. Although the idea of having the poem finished by the younger man seemed a tad far-fetched and forced considering that his interests were drum 'n' bass and thriller films. I know it's stereotypical of me, but I just don't buy a laddish type character like that remembering and reciting a poem - no matter how melancholy he may be.
Disappointingly, while I think it's a decent film (better than most), I have no real desire to see it again. If I did, it would only be to see if there were any hidden meanings in any of the earlier dialogue.
I'd be interested to see how many other people had worked it out much sooner than revealed.