Sul­phur and White

David (Mark Stan­ley) is your clas­sic over­con­fi­dent city boy, a worka­holic with a slick smooth veneer who does every­thing to the extreme. He attempts to impress osten­ta­tious boss Jeff (Alis­tair Petrie) with his work hard, par­ty hard antics and relent­less­ly pur­sues work col­league Vanes­sa (Emi­ly Beecham) while he’s still married.

As David even­tu­al­ly builds a shiny new life with Vanes­sa, the cracks begin to show in his emo­tion­al façade as he bat­tles with the mem­o­ries of the abuse he suf­fered through­out his child­hood and sub­se­quent­ly spi­rals into self-destruction.

Through a series of flash­backs, we’re shown the rela­tion­ship dynam­ic between David, his moth­er (Anna Friel) and his father (Dougray Scott) in addi­tion to the harsh envi­ron­ment that allowed his abuse to begin and then esca­late. Scott’s utter­ly chill­ing demeanour as David’s over­bear­ing dad shows glim­mers of bril­liance, but real­ly should have been allowed more time to per­co­late as it feels as if we were just scrap­ing the sur­face of this hor­ri­bly intrigu­ing character.

Julian Jarrold’s Sul­phur and White illus­trates the last­ing impact that child­hood abuse can have not only on its vic­tims, but also those around them. It nev­er resorts to trau­ma porn but does deal with the sub­ject in a pre­dictable and ulti­mate­ly for­get­table way.

For a sto­ry arc that relies so heav­i­ly on Vanessa’s love in help­ing David over­come his past, the rela­tion­ship between them feels emo­tion­al­ly lack­ing, and the actors are let down by a com­bi­na­tion of clunky writ­ing and a score that over­pow­ers poignant moments to the point of bor­der­ing on theatricality.

The result is that you don’t feel much griev­ed by the fact that their life togeth­er could fall apart, and as such, the film’s would-be redemp­tive part­ing shot fails to make much of an impact.