Peter Mullan gives a brilliant, bittersweet performance in Seán Dunn’s feature debut, a black comedy about ageing, identity and the grey area between history and fantasy.
Local historian and widower Kenneth (Mullan) works in Arberloch visitors’ centre as a tour guide, dressing up as the town’s most notable historical figure, Sir Douglas Weatherford, an 18th century philosopher and inventor who Kenneth proudly claims as his ancestor.
But when the village becomes the base of a big-budget fantasy TV show, ‘The White Stag of Emberfell’, the visitor centre is transformed into an Emberfell experience, and Weatherford becomes a triviality. With the show’s costumed fans descending on the town, Kenneth’s sanity crumbles as the traditions he holds dear are casually dismissed – and his crisis takes an even darker turn as he becomes fixated on the show’s handsome star, Oscar Sorenson.
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