SEW TORN (2024)

4 stars

Vertigo Releasing. UK and Ireland Digital. 31st March

Opens intriguingly with lead character Barbara Duggen (a very good Eve Connolly, with her expressive face) in three scenarios appearing to be near death in each of them. The title of the film is attractively and appropriately sewn into a piece of material. You kind of know from this small intro that you in for something special and different.

She runs a shop, selling threads and the like for sewing projects which she has tried to keep going since her mother died – she keeps her memory alive through hand stitched portraits of them together, which have pull cords which play recordings, and are hung around the premises. As well as the shop, Barbara is also a mobile seamstress.

As she leaves in her cute little blue car for an appointment with one of her last remaining customers, we see the sign Going out of Business slung across the frontage.

She drives a long way and is late. She is there to fix the wedding dress of a rather rude Englishwoman who knew Barbara’s mother, one Grace Vessler (Caroline Vessler). The button she is sewing on flies across the room and ends up lost in a grille in the floor. The rather vile client demands she goes and gets a spare back at the shop.

On the way back, we get to the crux of the movie as she comes across two crashed motorbikes in the road, two men grappling with each other and what may well be a drugs drop gone wrong.

The story is about choices (as Barbara intones in her voiceover narration which runs throughout). Choices, and the outcomes depending on which direction you take. It then goes on to explore three different timelines depending on the choice our protagonist takes — leading to what we saw flashes of in the opening minutes.

Director Freddy Macdonald (who also edited) has crafted an unusual and captivating tale, based on his short of the same name and working from a clever script by himself and Fred Macdonald (presumably a relation?). Intriguingly different, you are never sure which way the three threads are going to go, as Barbara finds herself in various scenarios, often using her sewing skills within the situations, in wonderfully creative ways – she’s a bit of a McGyver with a needle and thread – usually leading to violence and death!

As previously noted Eve Connolly is tremendous in the lead, backed up by a strong cast – notably K Callan as the local police woman. Despite all of them speaking English, the production set in Switzerland, with the locations nicely captured by cinematographer Sebastian Klinger.

Steve Kirkham