Shell is a powerful debut from both writer/director Scott Graham and star
Chloe Pirrie, both of whom make a huge impact with this slow burning drama full
of subtlety, nuance and imagery.
The film centres around the title character’s problematic
relationship with her father Pete, the similarly excellent Joseph Mawle. Only
seventeen years old, Shell is looking for a future but also in need of guidance
from a parent figure. However, she is mature for her age, and often seems like
the parent figure to Pete, who has been emotionally distant and dependent on
Shell due to his seizures and ever since Shell’s mother left them. Together, Shell and Pete own and run a garage in the middle of nowhere in the Scottish highlands, offering petrol and maintenance for passing drivers. The few we meet over the period of time we spend with Shell seem as lonely as she does; the conversations between Shell and customers as she fills up their cars rarely consists of more than a few words.
The beauty
of Shell and Pete's relationship, and indeed of the film, is the fact that both parties
clearly need each other for survival, yet they also despise their existence
here, both constantly looking for a way out. This formula results in a melting
pot of suppressed feeling and unsaid words, ready to explode any minute. The
film acts as a time bomb, waiting for one of them to reach their breaking
point, which comes in the moving and harrowing finale.
Technically, the film mirrors the slow pace of the script
beautifully, bringing the starkness of their lives to life in hauntingly
lingering photography. While the opening shots of the title character float
weightlessly around the interior and exterior of the petrol station, just as
Shell floats day after day around the same setting, the long shots that constantly
force us to watch vehicles, and therefore life, drive away down the long road
leave us with nothing, emulating Shell’s everyday struggle. Similarly, the
quiet, wind-heavy sound design reminds us that no one is around, bar the increasingly less common lorries, whose engine roars give us and Shell the briefest sense of hope, until they drive past without stopping.
A story of two distant people in the coldest of the Scottish
highlands, with a business that barely allows them to live and bad luck
following them like a shadow, the one positive that comes from this is the film
itself. It is an assured debut, which will hopefully propel both star and
director to more similarly minded stories. Although it may be a slow watch, it
is not one to dismiss and throw on the pile. This is a rare film that has
something to say, one whose every slow lingering image will stay with you.
