Red Road

Andrea Arnold's Red Road unwraps the hidden obsession lying dormant within its heroine. Kate Dickie plays Jackie who monitors a number of cameras which watch over a run down neighbourhood in Glasgow. One day, Jackie discovers a criminal who is inextricably linked to her past upon one of her screens and becomes obsessed with locating him. Her focus upon Clyde (Tony Curran) soon becomes destructive as she begins to spend more and more time viewing his life and less focusing on the community around her. Within Jackie's quiet desperate desire Arnold paints an intriguing portrait upon an ethical canvas, skillfully interrogating morality while deconstructing the dichotomy established between criminal and security officer, her finished product highlighting the difficulties one experiences in keeping the peace from psychological, communal, economic, and familial viewpoints. Sanity is for the sane and Red Road subtly and playfully challenges the concept of the normal while Dickie's poignant Jackie reminds us of the consequences of absolute loss.