Making Noise Quietly

Stars: Matthew Tennyson, Luke Thompson, Pauline McLynn, Barbara Marten, Geoffrey Streatfield, Deborah Findlay, Orton O'Brien, Trystan Gravelle

Director: Dominic Dromgoole

Three playlets set across a 50-year span, connected by tinkling piano music, and directed at a stately pace that makes Terence Davies look like Michael Bay. It's a quiet, observant film, although not one that manages to hold our attention for long.

In 1944 Kent, a gay man and a conscientious objector ramble across the countryside. In 1982, a widow is informed by a naval officer of the death of her son in the Falklands war. And in 1996, a Welshman and his troubled, mute young son, trekking through the Black Forest, come across a middle-aged woman painter.

The first feature film from Globe Theatre supremo Dromgoole, who has specialised in Shakespeare, its soporific proceedings are at least enlivened by the occasional dialogue hiccup: ''He undid the buttons of my trousers,' relates the gay man. 'I was toasting his muffin at the time.' A giggle and a snort, but perhaps too much information.

David Quinlan

UK 2019. UK Distributor: Verve (Open Palm Films). Colour by Panalux.
95 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 0, Drugs 0, Swearing 1.

Review date: 18 Jul 2019