Paul Mescal and Emily Watson are the protagonists of the film God’s Creatures, of which you can see an exclusive clip in anticipation of the film’s debut in theaters, scheduled for May 4th thanks to Academy Two.
Creatures of God is the new film with stars Paul Mescal ed Emily Watsonof which you can see one clip exclusively for Movieplayer.it, awaiting the debut in theaters scheduled for May 4th thanks to Academy Two.
In the video you can see a dramatic confrontation between mother and son while they are busy working in an oyster farm.
The plot of Creatures of God
The film Creatures of God, presented at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs in 2022, was directed by Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer, from a screenplay by Shane Crowley.
The story is set in Ireland, in a remote fishing village, a mother (Emily Watson) is torn between the instinct to protect her son (Paul Mescal) and her own moral sense. A lie told to cover the son from a defamatory accusation will risk shattering the family and the future of the small community to which she belongs.
The story begins when Brian O’Hara returns home after seven years abroad. Here his family raises oysters with great effort. His return initially seems like the answer to the prayers of a mother, Aileen, but soon it will also become the cross that she will have to bear. When Brian is accused of a terrible crime, Aileen will instinctively lie to protect him. Her identity as her mother is synonymous with self-sacrifice and defense of her family. As the aftermath of her lie ripples through the village and long-held tensions begin to seep through, so will a mother’s stoic devotion and her own tragic downfall. Aileen is extremely happy to see her prodigal son return home to revive the family’s businesses – however precarious -. She watches with pleasure as she re-enters the repetitive rhythms of the tides and the benefit of hard work. But when the police inform her that Brian is suspected of raping her factory colleague, Aileen plunges into an increasingly dramatic nightmare. Torn between love, shame, and a desperate desire to protect what little she has in the world, Aileen is confronted with the silence and denial that have long held the small community in which she lives hostage.
The origin of the project
God’s Creatures began as his story begins: with a relentless sea. It was the film’s producer, Fodhla Cronin O’Reilly, who first came up with the idea of looking behind the glamorous exterior of an Irish fishing village to find the moral intricacies of its inhabitants’ lives. Fodhla grew up in a similar fishing village in County Kerry on Ireland’s stormy west coast.
Cronin O’Reilly has chosen Shane Crowley, a childhood friend from a neighboring town in his own County Kerry, to screenplay the project. At the time, Crowley was not yet professionally trained, but Cronin O’Reilly’s long, poetic emails recounting his travels had fascinated him.
Thus the two began the creative process that within a decade turned into a screenplay, imagining the story of a mother and a son, and the lie that the mother supports to protect him when he is accused of sexual assault.
The preparation of Mescal and Watson
In the video shared exclusively on Movieplayer.it, the two protagonists are engaged in their work. Before production began, both Emily Watson and Paul Mescal underwent physical training to learn how to harvest oysters, a back-breaking job often done in icy, troubled waters. They did so at the oyster farm of Cronin O’Reilly’s brother John-Michael. “It was amazing to hear John-Michael talk about his oysters and the painstaking work he has to do with farmingMescal explained. The actor added, “In the way he talks about his oysters, as if they were his children, we hear the same lyricism of the fishermen in our script.”
According to the protagonist, the strenuous training has favored his approach to Emily: “A bond is created when you physically work so hard, helping each other on the boats. This created a deep connection between Saela, Anna, Emily and me in all that chaos of storms and tides“.
