Wild Rose

There is a sort of myth­i­cal strength that Jessie Buck­ley brings to her star­ring role in Wild Rose which tran­scends her phys­i­cal frame. It rolls through her like thun­der, a hun­gry, sta­t­ic ener­gy prov­ing beyond doubt that she belongs on the screen as much as her char­ac­ter, Rose-Lynn, an abra­sive, aspir­ing Glaswe­gian coun­try singer, belongs on the stage.

“Why coun­try?” asks Susan­nah, her well-mean­ing mid­dle class employ­er (played with warmth by Sophie Okone­do). ​“Because it’s three chords and the truth” Rose-Lynn replies read­i­ly, ges­tur­ing to a tat­too on her arm that reit­er­ates the sen­ti­ment. This answer from prob­a­bly any­one else would cause eyes to roll to the heav­ens, but there’s an unshake­able sin­cer­i­ty in Buck­ley that is instant­ly agree­able, an impor­tant trait giv­en her character’s ten­den­cy to stray from the moral path.

We join Rose-Lynn walk­ing out of a 12-month prison sen­tence, a court-ordered anklet clash­ing with her mul­ti-coloured toe­nail pol­ish. Before return­ing home to her young chil­dren and moth­er Mar­i­on (Julie Wal­ters, enjoy­ing a meati­er role than her career has allowed of late) she vis­its an old boyfriend for grass-stained sex on a local estate, an ear­ly intro­duc­tion to her reluc­tant take on parenthood.

Maybe she’s a bad moth­er, maybe she’s been in her own com­pa­ny for too long, but it’s clear that all par­ties see Mar­i­on as the pre­ferred matri­arch, with Rose-Lynn look­ing as crest­fall­en as her kids when their grand­moth­er leaves them to reacquaint.

Before long she’s backed into a cor­ner, her urge to per­form infring­ing on her parental duties. The weight of her guilt is blind­ing­ly appar­ent, but it’s not enough to stop her from crash­ing the stage at her local music venue, or lying to Susan­nah about her home life in the hope that she’ll help send her to Nashville, where she dreams of stardom.

Screen­writer Nicole Tay­lor uses Rose-Lynn’s rela­tion­ship with the two women to vocalise her inner bat­tles. It’s an impres­sive first fea­ture script with del­i­cate­ly formed char­ac­ters that uses empa­thy to abol­ish any cliché́s that might come from a work­ing class drama.

And then there’s the music. Rose-Lynn may find her con­fi­dence in per­form­ing stan­dards instead of writ­ing her own songs, but when she does break into her own mate­r­i­al (notably the film’s clos­ing song, a swelling trib­ute to home co-writ­ten by actor Mary Steen­bur­gen) it’s the high­light of the film.

Direc­tor Tom Harp­er, who direct­ed Buck­ley in the 2016 TV adap­ta­tion of ​‘War & Peace’, equal­ly plays his best hand dur­ing the film’s musi­cal per­for­mances, trans­form­ing the south side of Glas­gow into a vibrant, heel-tap­ping under­ground scene that could be mis­tak­en for Ten­nessee were it not for the thick (flaw­less) local accents.

Where Michael Pearce’s Beast had Buck­ley mean­der­ing across wild and emo­tion­al­ly fraught ter­rain, in Wild Rose she is con­fi­dent­ly locked into a sin­gle gear, like a human Berro­ca tablet con­stant­ly fizzing with ener­gy and colour, giv­ing Rose-Lynn the best shot at mak­ing it that she pos­si­bly can. Here’s hop­ing, come awards sea­son, she might make it as well.