Finnie, the (anti-)hero of 'Run', is an angry man. He does honest but dull and smelly work in a fish-processing plant. Home is a pokey, untidy house on a grey estate. His wife and two sons constantly get on his nerves. To rub salt into an open wound, his car will not start while his eldest son's goes perfectly. (A hint at how Finnie arrived at his grim situation is given here: although he is a relatively young man - actor Mark Stanley would have been in his very early thirties when filming this - he has a child who is already old enough to drive). Mostly the film follows the course of one night during which Finnie steals his son's car, almost runs off with the boy's pregnant girlfriend and witnesses his wife finally snapping at the strain of dealing with her constantly growling husband.
At one point the 2019 London Film Festival's screening of the film's European premiere was advertised as having English sub-titles, a strange thing for an English-language film. In the event the sub-titles did not appear, but actually they would have been useful - the film is set in northern Scotland and I must shame-facedly admit I could understand the accents only some of the time. As for the acting, why Englishman Stanley was considered a good fit for Scotsman Finnie I do not know - were all the Scottish actors busy? There's a good turn from Amy Manson as Finnie's wife Katie, although that may be because in her efforts to ignore her own frustrations and lighten the argumentative mood of her family, Katie is a more sympathetic and well-rounded character than her husband. And therein is the film's main problem: as a central character, Finnie is too shallow. So the film is engrossing enough to watch once - principally because the viewer is hoping that Katie gets a happy ending - but once only.
At one point the 2019 London Film Festival's screening of the film's European premiere was advertised as having English sub-titles, a strange thing for an English-language film. In the event the sub-titles did not appear, but actually they would have been useful - the film is set in northern Scotland and I must shame-facedly admit I could understand the accents only some of the time. As for the acting, why Englishman Stanley was considered a good fit for Scotsman Finnie I do not know - were all the Scottish actors busy? There's a good turn from Amy Manson as Finnie's wife Katie, although that may be because in her efforts to ignore her own frustrations and lighten the argumentative mood of her family, Katie is a more sympathetic and well-rounded character than her husband. And therein is the film's main problem: as a central character, Finnie is too shallow. So the film is engrossing enough to watch once - principally because the viewer is hoping that Katie gets a happy ending - but once only.
