Like the vibrator that facilitates a turning point for its owner in “A Good Woman Is Hard to Find,” this remorseless revenge story is a particularly blunt implement. Yet the director, Abner Pastoll, finds a measure of delicacy and nuance in the telling: Working from a script (by Ronan Blaney) that’s a minor miracle of austerity and pacing, he layers gangland grift, domestic drama and female fury into a satisfying lasagna of mounting violence.
Set in an unnamed city in Northern Ireland against a painstakingly drawn backdrop of low-income strife, the movie focuses on Sarah (a fantastic Sarah Bolger), a frayed mother of two. Pale and delicate, Sarah carries the twin burdens of a recently deceased husband and a son who mysteriously refuses to speak. We don’t learn immediately how her husband died; but, given that we meet her covered in blood before the movie backtracks to fill in the blanks, we suspect that it may not have been from natural causes.
“Best let sleeping dogs lie,” a disinterested police officer advises when Sarah inquires about the investigation into the death. They have already written him off as a bad lot; so when Tito (Andrew Simpson), an opportunistic thief, breaks into her home to stash his latest drug haul, the terrified Sarah sees little point in seeking help from the authorities. To protect her little ones from Tito — and, later, the gangland big shot who owns the drugs — she will have to act alone.
While the movie barrels toward a final act that’s more feminist fantasy than credible conclusion, Bolger’s phenomenal performance locks us tightly on Sarah’s side. If good women are hard to find here, good men are impossible: In hardware store and supermarket, men regard her with contempt and condescension. Police officers and social workers alike assess her appearance and parenting with barely veiled disapproval. And by wrapping the character in a miasma of sexism, the filmmakers excuse her operatic violence as more than simply a mother’s need to defend her offspring: It’s a long-suppressed rage against every demeaning look and insinuating comment.
At the same time, this potent little thriller (photographed by Richard Bell using Grand Guignol bursts of sticky red and impenetrable black) is careful to remind us regularly of Sarah’s tender side.
“You’re too soft, Sarah,” her judgmental mother (a fine Jane Brennan) snaps, watching her with the children. If she only knew.
A Good Woman is Hard to Find
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 37 minutes. Watch on Film Movement’s Virtual Cinema or rent or buy on Amazon, iTunes and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
