The movie won multiple awards and scored 95% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Due to the fact that most cinema lovers were avoiding the big screen experience for most of 2021, chances are there are a lot of great smaller movies that slipped through the cracks.
One of those is likely to be Wildfire, which arrived in Irish cinemas in September 2021, which centres around two sisters (Nora-Jane Noone and Nika McGuigan) who grew up on the fractious Irish border. When one of them, who has been missing, finally returns home, the intense bond with her sister is re-ignited, while they also dig deeper into the private life of their mysterious mother.
The movie won the IFTA for Best Actress (for Nika McGuigan) and Best Director (for Cathy Brady), and won the award for Best Screenplay at the British Independent Film Awards (also for Cathy Brady).
Upon its initial release, the movie received some tremendous reviews from critics:
The Observer - "Savagely powerful, directed with an unshowy but acute eye (the use of the colour red is a simple but searingly effective device), this is a terrific feature debut from the writer and director Cathy Brady."
Cinevue - "The film uses the Troubles and Brexit to frame its understanding of the past and the present. Brady suggests a liminal psychological space - much like the liminal political space that Brexit created - through which Lauren and Kelly’s traumas move and, perhaps, can be understood."
The Irish Times - "Appearing opposite Nora-Jane Noone in a film that twists the actors round each other like competing bindweed, McGuigan could hardly have delivered a more bracing final performance. So savage is her turn that you expect water drops to hiss off her broiling skin."
Slant - "The structure of Wildfire’s narrative doesn’t emerge out of a simplistic progression from strife to reconciliation, as writer-director Cathy Brady has her characters follow a realistically erratic trajectory."
IndieWire - "Brady's feature debut is a powerful slice of kitchen-sink gloom, and a blazing portrait of women on fire, unsure of where to go in the wake of rippling tragedy."
Wildfire is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video right now.
Clip via Modern Films
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