Bait: Film Review

Bait: Film Review

Director: Mark Jenkin

Experimental in form and conventional in narrative, Bait is a film that impresses once you succumb to its rhythms.

Written and directed by Jenkin, the English film looks at the simmering tensions in the south west of England, a tourist mecca inflamed by outside visitors moving in.

Martin Ward is a fisherman in a Cornish village, who struggles to make ends meet, while his brother uses their father's ship to ferry tourists around and make money.

Tensions are further enraged when Ward continually parks outside a holiday home owned by out-of-towners...

There's little in the way of plot of this 16mm monochromatic film but using inventive touches and flashes of directorial genius, Jenkin's Bait emerges as something truly original and challenging.

Expertly capturing how the powderkeg is lit with simmering intensity in seaside towns, Bait's clever bait-and-switch approach to the narrative, offering flash forwards here and there that seem out of place, proves an arresting take on a thin story.

Sure, some may feel the film has the touches of an experiment from an art student, but its approach is to be praised, and its meticulous touches commended. Gruff and emotional, Bait is a film that will hook you in, but perhaps in ways you'd never expected.