“The Road Dance” (M) *** and a half

THE gentle 117-minutes-long drama is the third feature film by American writer and director Richie Adams, whose career in movies began in 2002 in the unexciting but essential trade of creating those slides listing everybody who got paid to work on a task, big or tiny, in every film’s creation.

The story from John Mackay’s best-seller 2002 novel unfolds for the most part in 1916 on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. Beginning by telling the audience that it’s based on true events, it won the Audience Award at the 2021 Edinburgh Film Festival.

Village girl Kirsty (Hermione Corfield), falls in love with a young man, Murdo (Will Fletcher). But along with three other local youths he gets called for military training, which takes him to service in France. There he meets the fate of so many infantrymen, unaware that back in Scotland, Kirsty has been raped and is pregnant.

The film’s Act 2 tells how Kirsty deals with knowing that the rapist is not the man she loves. Hiding her secret through pregnancy is not easy. Her mother (Morven Christie) comes to her aid after the birth just in time to foil Kirsty’s attempts to suicide. 

The local constable (Ian Pirie) suspects that an offence may have been committed. We learn that Kirsty did indeed know who raped her but not before the narrative gets perilously close to revealing his name.

The film’s dramatic energy is strong and the cast does a fine job. However, its brief coda, which may be the result of its creator being American, rather blights its dramatic impact. 

A happy ending is not de rigeur but that’s what this one’s got, despite having at the end of Act 2 tried to persuade us that it’s not going to give us one.

At Palace Electric