Glasgow Film Festival 2023: MY SAILOR, MY LOVE

Finnish director Klaus Härö‘s latest is a poignant, solemn tale of late love, past mistakes, and accepting that some wounds can never fully heal. Among the beautifully verdant fields and hills of the Irish seafront, My Sailor, My Love evokes the quiet sadness of late-life isolation, the emotional fallout from absent parents, and reckoning with the choices you’ve made. It swerves left when you expect it to swerve right – for example in its initial scene setting, where you may think the ostensible plot is an enemies-to-friends dynamic – and doesn’t offer easy answers to its questions. For that reason, it is a different proposition than the one you may expect going in, but in its complex characters, it is worth the while.

The Sailor

Grace (Catherine Walker) is living life on a knife-edge. Working every hour she can as a nurse at the hospital, dealing with a bemused husband who wants to leave Ireland and set up in Munich, and caring for her elderly curmudgeon of a father, retired sailor Howard (James Cosmo), a man who treats her with precious little respect but who’s validation she desperately craves.

Everything comes to a head during a birthday party for Howard, which Grace organises. Howard is his usual taciturn self, seldom interacting with anyone, refusing birthday cake (“I’m saving myself”) from his daughter, and forever casting a gloomy eye over proceedings.

Later, in his local pub, Howard is a different man. Brought to life by regaling stories of his seafaring adventures to his grandchildren – even accepting a slice of cake from an unsuspecting party member. Grace sees all this and decides she has had enough. It is clear Howard has no time for her and is more than happy to give of himself to others. But why? In her frustration, Grace places an advert for a housekeeper.

The Love

Annie (Brid Brennan) is that housekeeper. She enters Howard’s life to the resentment of the old man, who promptly offers to pay her more than his daughter is in order to “never darken my doorstep again”. You may feel, at this point, that it’s obvious where the script is going. Annie and Howard will fight but slowly fall in love and this love will fix the problems in Howard’s life. However, that is not where Härö, or scriptwriters Jimmy Karlsson and Kirsi Vikman are headed.

My Sailor, My Love is far more interested in the notion that some things can’t be fixed. Howard’s reticence towards his daughter is all too understandable when you learn he spent the majority of her childhood at sea, leaving her, her siblings, and their mother alone. Howard is grappling with the choices he made, and the resentment he knows Grace feels toward him.

Grace, for her part, is dealing with a confusing tangle of anger and love for her father. He abandoned her, was even absent when her mother drowned, and yet now, in the last stages of his life, she cares for him. She attempts group therapy but finds she cannot reconcile her anger through the abstract methods of her therapist, and so becomes an unwitting force of nature – more so when she witnesses Howard’s burgeoning romance with Annie.

As Howard and Annie become closer he begins to resemble the father Grace wishes she had. Attentive to Annie, helpful with her grandchildren, and welcoming to her extended family. Grace watches this with a quiet fury which spills out in drastic ways, such as crushing the story Howard tells Annie’s granddaughter about fighting with a gorilla, or writing a letter to Annie assuring her Howard will never change and likely repeat the same mistakes he did with her own mother.

There is no emotional second act, no high-stakes drama to play out. My Sailor, My Love is a much more muted fare, following the logic of its scenario rather than sensationalise its elements for drama. Howard, Annie, and Grace all reckon with their emotions as they encounter one another, and only time will ever resolve it, if anything can. Grace, for all her frustration at Howard’s stubbornness, shares it. Annie, recovered from an abusive relationship in her past, wants to avoid drama where she can and tentatively navigates the two pillars she finds herself stuck between.

Cold Fury

Härö never lets his story stray into melodrama. His grasp on proceedings is controlled in the sense that he moves on quickly through his story, letting each part breathe without becoming cloying. Howard’s hidden health issues rear up on a few occasions – one shockingly so – but a visit to the hospital confirms the issues. Instead, they only serve to underline Howard’s eternal problem: rather than confide in anyone, he stoically holds his cards close to his chest. Grace, similarly, finds no great redemption through the usual narrative means. Therapy does not help her, and her husband will not save her from herself. As Grace’s life begins to spiral, there is no tidy solution waiting in the wings. This is the life these people are leading.

Cosmo is perfectly cast as Howard. He easily conveys gruffness hiding a deep vulnerability, and can access his softer side in the moments where he allows himself to open up to Annie. Walker has arguably the heaviest lifting of the trio as the conflicted Grace. Walker rarely lets the viewer feel sorry for Grace, or connect with her in any meaningful way. Instead, she plays Grace with cold fury to the world, erecting a wall around herself so that no one – not even her husband – can get in. The few moments of vulnerability we see come when she is confronted with Howard’s actions, and an achingly touching moment near the end where she herself must reckon with her choices. Finally, Brid Brennan does well with Annie, albeit in a more limited role than either Cosmo or Walker. Annie simply wants a quiet life and is unsure whether she can trust Howard to give her that, or whether she should heed Grace’s warning. To that end, Annie is often careful, and it’s this exactness that Brennan does well.

Conclusion:

My Sailor, My Love is not quite a romance. It is a slow examination of the wounds we inflict on each other and the difficulties of moving past those wounds. It is the acceptance that in fact, sometimes, there are some wounds that cannot be healed. Directed with a sparse nature by Härö, and anchored by beautiful performances from Cosmo and Walker specifically, it is by turns beautiful and sad, but always moving.

My Sailor, My Love is currently showing at the Glasgow Film Festival.

Watch My Sailor, My Love