Winter
Tommy Flanagan stars as an alcoholic artist with a troubled past in this commendable but seriously misjudged drama
Generally speaking, movies focused on addiction are most compelling when they consider the psychology behind self-destructive and antisocial behaviour. For example, Billy Wilder's The Lost Weekend depicts an alcoholic whose crippling insecurities offer as much an incentive to continue drinking as any chemical dependency. The junkie protagonist of The Man With the Golden Arm, meanwhile, is a tragic captive of an impoverished social class.
In Winter, first time writer-director Heidi Greensmith introduces us to Woods Western, a successful and charismatic artist, intermittently living the life of a down-and-out as he battles alcoholism. He's a charismatic liar, prone to violent outbursts and bouts of weeping, though a series of flashbacks shows he wasn't always this way. It was only following an unlikely, gruesome tragedy that his addiction took hold. He drinks in response to this single incident and its aftermath.
While the desire to show us the burden Woods' actions place on his family is commendable, there's a serious misjudgement in playing his outlandish gestures for laughs and allowing him to function with relative ease. Already a dishevelled bohemian, his decline in appearance and living standards goes virtually unnoticed as he claws his way back to respectability. This is achieved by channelling his despair into striking works of art, the film inadvertantly glamourising human suffering and unstable mental conditions.
Winter screened at Glasgow Film Festival.
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