Raindance Festival Review – Row (2024)

Raindance Festival Review – Row (2024)

Matthew Losasso’s debut feature is as much a mystery (though only incidentally a murder mystery) as it is a saga of foolhardy people pitting themselves against the elements and their own worst impulses.

A coolly-designed boat bobs about near the Isle of Hoy, well off its Canada-to-Ireland course, with an apparent sole survivor, Megan (Bella Dayne, from Humans), washed ashore in a malnourished, delirious and semi-amnesiac state.  As she recuperates under the eye of a local copper (Tam Dean Burn), she puts together more of the pieces of and relives the traumatic voyage.  Omens kick in early when one of the four-person crew, Adam (Mark Strepan, from New Blood), breaks his leg and the desperate-to-prove-himself-to-rich-Dad captain Daniel (Akshay Khanna, from Murderbot) brings in mystery man Mike (co-writer Nick Skaugen), who can’t decide on which accent to use and has nightmares about a girl he might have murdered.  Dark, withdrawn Megan and blonde, bright spark Lexi (Sophie Skelton, from Outlander) still go along with the attempt to break a transatlantic rowing record though the voyage is dogged by mishaps (a broken rudder), crazy spells (everyone has one), Queeg-Bligh like spurts of mutiny against a paranoid slave-driver, sabotage, foolhardy decisions (like throwing away all the food they won’t need if they keep to a schedule which is already long forgotten) and even possible monsters of the deep.

At two hours, this feels like a long haul, especially since none of the quartet is exactly good company for an epic ordeal – which might well be the point.  It has some spectacular sea stuff, some done in a tank or goosed by CG but extraordinarily convincing, but the real horrors are in the mind as even Megan can’t trust what she remembers, sees, feels or (especially) is told.  Losasso and Skaugen play double bluff sometimes, with an apparent confession which might be a lie to allow for a balance of guilt between edgy survivors who are torn between mutual suspicion and a need to rely on each other.

Here’s the Raindance listing.