Director: Richie Adams
Starring: Hermione Corfield, Morven Christie, Ali Fumiko Whitney, Will Fletcher, Felicity Keenan, Scott Miller, Alison Peebles, Luke Nunn, Mark Gatiss, Jeff Stewart
Distributor: Umbrella Films
Runtime: 117 mins. Reviewed in Dec 2022
Reviewer: Jan Epstein

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Rating notes: Mature themes and violence, including a scene of sexual violence.

A young girl lives in Lewis, a small village in the Outer Hebrides just before WWI. Her life takes a dramatic change when a terrible tragedy befalls her.

The Road Dance of the title is a village celebration on the evening before some of the conscripted young men go to war.

This is a film of many moods. There is joy. There is great sadness and hurt. There is desperation.

The setting is the island of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides. The time is 1916. There is a great deal of the old world of the 19th century there, brick and thatched huts, no electricity, an enclosed community – although there is connection to the mainland, a postal service, doctors visiting…

In a prologue set in 1904, we are introduced to Kirsty and her father, teaching her to swim, to breathe (even though his terminal illness prevents him breathing well), looking at the liner passing their bay on its way to America, the possibility of going there from Lewis.

In 1916, Kirsty (a glowing performance from Corfield, moments of joy, moments of hurt, moments of desperation) lives with her widowed mother and younger sister. They work the land, especially growing potatoes. There is a small community, a doctor from London, the police officer, an old eccentric who doesn’t talk, Skipper, an enigmatic lady who observes everyone, and the young men who are soon to go to war. One of the men is already working at an army desk, Murdo (Fletcher), discreetly in love with Kirsty and she with him.

This is a slow-build film, inviting the audience to come and live in Lewis, experience village life and meet the people – some likeable, some not.

Then there is the Road Dance with Murdo and the other five young men celebrating before they go off, with the enthusiastic blessing of the older men, to fight for King and country.

On the night of the Road Dance, Kirsty, somewhat sad with Murdo’s imminent departure, goes out and sits on the cliffs – and is violently attacked, raped. She does not see who it was attacked her, nor does the audience. Kirsty has hit her head on stones, is found, and taken to the care of the doctor.

So, this becomes a film about women who are victimised brutally by men, the secrecy, the shame, and the consequences for the young woman, pregnant, trying to conceal the pregnancy, even from her mother and sister. Kirsty becomes a sad woman.

While the audience will think they know where the plot is going, and identifying the attacker it does not. There are some complications in the village, with her mother and sister, with the doctor, with the police. It is here that the drama becomes involving for the audience. And it is compounded by sad news from the front – with some sequences showing the horrific conditions and battle scenes.

The ending will give rise to a variety of reactions from the audience as it considers the perpetual conflict between inevitable dramatic tragedy or happiness.