Christopher Andrews’ Bring Them Down is an endurance test with no payoff. Opening with a jarring car crash on a windy road in rural Ireland, the film soon adds scenes of gruesome animal cruelty, an ear literally being blown off someone’s head, and then further sequences of gruesome animal cruelty. Such onscreen acts can be tremendously moving, of course, when presented in great films––Andrea Arnold’s 2021 documentary Cow a recent example.
Bring Them Down is not a great film. It’s occasionally compelling thanks to its haunting, almost otherworldly locations in Ireland. Mainly, though, what stands out are performances of the ever-intense Christopher Abbott, Nora-Jane Noone, and, most notably, Barry Keoghan. But the actors serve a drama that is relentlessly violent and thoroughly unpleasant. It’s a testament to these performers that they make so much of so little.
Abbott plays Michael, a man still dealing with the ramifications of an accident years earlier, one that left his then-girlfriend Caroline (Noone) visibly scarred. He’s now a sheep farmer who lives with his disabled father, a stern, unloving brute. Meanwhile, Caroline is married to Gary (Paul Ready), a drinker with ambitious plans but little money to carry them out. Gary is another sheep farmer, and he is assisted by the couple’s son, Jack (Keoghan). Clashing between Michael and Gary seems inevitable, and once Gary steals two of Michael’s rams, confrontation is all but assured.
Michael and Gary are two intense but somewhat uninteresting characters. We learn nothing of Michael’s inner life, his hopes and dreams. This is why Bring Them Down becomes far more engaging when the perspective shifts from Michael to Jack. Pressured to take part in some truly detestable acts, Jack seems to have little opportunity to make decisions for himself. When his mother offers him the choice to move with her to Cork, he barely mutters a response. For all of the missteps of Christoper Andrews’ screenplay, Jack is a captivating creation. What is not captivating is the long, sustained sequences in which Michael’s rams are horribly attacked. Yes, this is a movie, and obviously the animals are fine. That doesn’t make these scenes any more palatable.
Bring Them Down is Andrews’ feature debut, and it should be said he knows how to stage sequences of intense action. He also has a deft understanding of the thoroughly complex relationships between sons and their parents. There is a scene in which Gary discovers that Jack has not killed rams that belong to Michael, as instructed. Gary shouts and shoving ensues, with Jack eventually socking his father in the jaw. The sequence culminates in Gary holding his son tight, anger having turned to something resembling empathy. It is a beautiful moment, wonderfully acted by Keoghan and Ready, and one of the only times Bring Them Down‘s emotions actually surprise us.
Christopher Abbott continues proving one of cinema’s most exciting talents, and if his sad-eyed performance as Michael doesn’t equal his work in Sanctuary and Poor Things, it still shows how much he can bring to a role that’s largely interior anguish. Nora Jane-Noone and Paul Ready make for a believably battling couple, and Colm Meaney brings great weight to an underwritten character, but it’s Barry Keoghan who stands out. Simultaneously childish and adult, weak and confident, he makes Jack a character who earns our sympathy while committing horribly distressing acts. This is a dynamic, knowing, memorable performance, perhaps the one reason Bring Them Down will be remembered.
Bring Them Down premiered at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival and will be released by MUBI.