Watch Wildfire | TAKE ONE | TIFF 2020 and Film Reviews

Kelly (Nika McGuigan) returns to Belfast after many years missing. Her sister, Lauren (Nora-Jane Noone), is at once grateful but also confused and angry at her sister’s prolonged absence and lack of contact. Both the sisters are haunted by the memory of their mother’s passing, and Lauren worries Kelly’s mental health is going down a similar path. Kelly’s arrival strains the bonds of the sisters, of Lauren’s marriage, and the community around them. Underscored by the local sectarian and paramilitary tensions that have lain dormant until recently, the pair start to hurtle towards a reckoning with their own and the community’s pasts.

The timeline of Kelly’s traumas and return feel very pointed and allegorical. Much is made of the imagery in the Belfast setting referring to Brexit, and the particularly damaging effect it could have – and has already had – on the Irish border. Brady’s framing frequently lingers on British flags, murals harking back to The Troubles, and a road sign graffitied to read “Welcome to One Ireland” rather than Northern Ireland. A customs search of Kelly upon her return is a traumatically invasive experience exerted by government authority. These are mainly a backdrop, however, to a passionate and engaging performance from McGuigan as Kelly (made all the more poignant by the fact she passed away from cancer-related illness after filming was complete, and the film is dedicated to her). Noone provides an equally engaging but slightly more straight-laced performance as Lauren, even if she is predictably pitched (initially) as an opposing force).

All of these elements speak to the fact that a national-scale constitutional trauma can often abstract attention away for the comparatively micro-scale personal anguishes resulting from it. A straight line can be drawn from the women’s father’s experiences of The Troubles, through their mother’s fate, to the dynamics of their relationship in the present. Arguably, Brady is slightly more assured behind the camera than the pen here: her stylistic flourishes and use of red to draw connections work better than the subtle attempts in the script to blend the political backdrop with the personal foreground. The hostility and suspicion of the community around the sisters come through strongly, but the antagonistic elements around local paramilitary released as a result of the Good Friday agreement, for example, never quite connect with those lingering and abstract political strands.

Nevertheless, WILDFIRE is an intelligent and considered debut feature anchored by two engaging central performances. The story is very much character-driven, and the film never loses sight of that with the focus on the late McGuigan, in particular. Although the broader-scale backdrop doesn’t coalesce fully with that story, it still provides a pointed and bold addition to the film.