Albatross
Dir: Niall MacCormick
2011
**
Niall MacCormick's debut feature Albatross tells the simple tale of a troubled and rebellious young girl called Emelia (played by the impressive Jessica Brown Findlay) trying to find her way in the world in the shadow of her mother's suicide and with expectations of becoming a writer, like her great-great-Grandfather, Arthur Conan Doyle. The term Albatross in this case is a metaphor describing someone as a constant and inescapable burden, which could be said of our leading lady as well as other key characters. Emelia starts a new job cleaning rooms at a guest house and soon befriends the family's daughter as well as begin an affair with the her farther. The film continues in this predictable and rather familiar manner from then on. The performances are good but the characters and script are too unreal for any of it to be convincing. The message doesn't really come across as I think the director had hoped and the conclusion is disappointingly dull. The real problem is that Emelia isn't a constant and inescapable burden and at no point does she suggest she feels as if she is. She is just impossibly annoying and self-destructive, suffering from small town boredom. I'm afraid there are so many films that deal with the same subject that it was this boredom alone that felt authentic. It was certainly boredom that resinated with me during my viewing.