I am Scottish and visited Pennan, the main filming location for the fictional village of Furness. At the viewpoint before you go down to the village, I was privileged to witness one of the most spectacular sunsets I have ever seen. The beach and the views are breathtaking.
Now to the movie. It was difficult to care about the village because it looked shabby in the movie, not charming. The poor lighting and cramped interior scenes didn't help. Add to that the that the fact that villagers didn't care either, and just wanted to sell up. The only person who seemed to sort of care was Marina, played by Jenny Seagrove, who is half-heartedly cast as some sort of modern-era mermaid complete with webbed feet (no, really). Almost always seen in a wetsuit, she pops up from and disappears into the sea every so often, inflicting a Scottish accent on everyone almost as dire as Michael Caine's in Kidnapped. We don't get to know enough about her and how she feels about the place for her to make much difference to the story. It looked like Ben, the old beach guy would turn out to be a descendant of the Scot who founded the Knox oil company that wants to buy the village. That could have been a great angle, but turned out to be a dead end. I found the ending to be less than satisfactory too.
If you harbour romantic views of Scotland in your heart e.g. You're an American with Scottish blood, you may enjoy the movie. If not, prepare to be underwhelmed.
Now to the movie. It was difficult to care about the village because it looked shabby in the movie, not charming. The poor lighting and cramped interior scenes didn't help. Add to that the that the fact that villagers didn't care either, and just wanted to sell up. The only person who seemed to sort of care was Marina, played by Jenny Seagrove, who is half-heartedly cast as some sort of modern-era mermaid complete with webbed feet (no, really). Almost always seen in a wetsuit, she pops up from and disappears into the sea every so often, inflicting a Scottish accent on everyone almost as dire as Michael Caine's in Kidnapped. We don't get to know enough about her and how she feels about the place for her to make much difference to the story. It looked like Ben, the old beach guy would turn out to be a descendant of the Scot who founded the Knox oil company that wants to buy the village. That could have been a great angle, but turned out to be a dead end. I found the ending to be less than satisfactory too.
If you harbour romantic views of Scotland in your heart e.g. You're an American with Scottish blood, you may enjoy the movie. If not, prepare to be underwhelmed.