The Nest
Director: Sean Durkin

The character of Rory O’Hara in writer-director Sean Durkin’s first feature since his 2011 debut Martha Marcy May Marlene carries the same aura of golden charisma that Jude Law (inset, with Carrie Coon), who plays him, carried to perfection in earlier roles. The casting of The Nest is crucial: if one does not believe that Rory ever possessed the charm and finesse on which his survival relies, then the story loses its emotional heart.

Rory is a cockney wide boy who, for a while at least, made serious money as a financial trader in 1980s New York. Now, he tells his American wife Allison, things have dried up for him in America and there’s a better opportunity for him back in London. Although Allison, played with flawless subtlety and power by Carrie Coon, protests that this will be the family’s fourth move in 10 years, she yields to his blandishments. She teaches riding, and we’re offered a visceral sense that all will not be well when she loads her beloved but panicked horse into a trailer ready for the journey to England.