Unsurprisingly, isolation and alienation are at the heart of the film, not just for Shell (yes, like the petrol) and her father but for the few people that pass through including a vulnerable middle-aged divorcee (Michael Smiley) and a lonely local young guy (Iain De Caestecker). Even a relatively upbeat tourist couple (Kate Dickie and Paul Thomas Hickey) manage to hit a deer and write-off their car. Shell gives the wife some slabs of the deer that her Dad has butchered and the wife gives Shell a copy of Carson McCullers’ “The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter”. Sheesh, thanks!
Although Graham tends to overplay his hand with the unrelieved glumness he builds a sense of claustrophobic foreboding with the accumulation of isolated incidents whilst never losing sight of the tenderness in the quiet young woman’s relationship with the world. When the climactic turning point arrives, despite its sensationalist potential, it is handled with convincing poignancy. Only in the final resolution does Graham second guess the low key treatment which made the film so effective until that point.