‘Silent Roar’ Review: A Fresh Debut Feature From Scotland Surfs Playfully Across Classic Themes of Sex, Death and Religion
variety.comCatherine Bray Dondo’s dad is dead. That’s one of the first things we learn in writer-director Johnny Barrington’s spry, offbeat debut feature “Silent Roar” — this year’s Edinburgh fest opener.
This information is delivered by Paddy the Priest, a preacher with shrewd eyes and wild hair. Standing on the doorstep, addressing an audience of the late fisherman’s widow and teenage son, Paddy (Mark Lockyer, excellent in a small but potent role) intones, “It must be coming up a year now since he was taken by the waves.
Fishing on the Sabbath as he was, I hear.” Technically, Dondo’s dad is missing at sea, but despite the atmosphere of religious conviction that hangs over this small Scottish island community, nobody has much faith in the possibility of his survival.Dondo, however, is a dreamer.
His father’s fate hasn’t quenched his thirst for the ocean. A keen surfer with a light and likeable optimism about him, he appears to derive a kind of spiritual satisfaction from riding the waves.
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