{"id":3473,"date":"2026-06-14T04:14:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T04:14:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/2026\/06\/14\/on-the-sea-review-a-piercingly-observed-queer-love-story-set-in-a-hyper-masculine-welsh-fishing-community\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T04:14:00","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T04:14:00","slug":"on-the-sea-review-a-piercingly-observed-queer-love-story-set-in-a-hyper-masculine-welsh-fishing-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/2026\/06\/14\/on-the-sea-review-a-piercingly-observed-queer-love-story-set-in-a-hyper-masculine-welsh-fishing-community\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018On the Sea\u2019 Review: A Piercingly Observed Queer Love Story Set in a Hyper-Masculine Welsh Fishing Community"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\tIt\u2019s tempting to describe English novelist-turned-filmmaker Helen Walsh\u2019s fine-grained gay love story\u00a0On the Sea<\/em>\u00a0as another version of\u00a0God\u2019s Own Country<\/a><\/em>, switching out Yorkshire farmland for coastal waters in North Wales<\/a>. But that would be unfairly reductive. Like Francis Lee\u2019s smoldering 2017 debut feature, this is a rugged, elemental drama whose slow-burn potency plays out against a landscape as bleak as it is beautiful, where taciturn men are locked into restrictive codes of masculinity set in stone generations ago.\u00a0 \t<\/p>\n

\tA palpable sense of place, of milieu and of working-class lives in which pleasure, passion and desire have been dulled courses through this atmospherically charged film like the icy seawater and rough currents of the straits. The unerring restraint of its leads never obscures the raw feelings of their sensitively drawn characters. <\/p>\n

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\t \t \t\t \t\t\t\t\tOn the Sea\t\t \t <\/h3>\n

The Bottom Line<\/span> \t\t\t\t\t \t \tA distinctive drama steeped in melancholy sensuality. \t<\/span> \t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Venue<\/strong>: Provincetown Film Festival (Narratives)
Cast<\/strong>: Barry Ward, Lorne MacFadyen, Liz White, Henry Lawfull, Celyn Jones, Danny Webb, Leisa Gwenllian
Director-screenwriter<\/strong>: Helen Walsh
\t\t\t \t\t\t \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1 hour 51 minutes\t\t\t<\/span> \t\t<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\tThe middle-aged protagonist, Jack (Barry Ward), and his younger brother Dyfan (Celyn Jones) co-own a mussel farm, a hardscrabble enterprise being squeezed by larger commercial fisheries. Jack and Dyfan are the third generation of men in their family to endure the backbreaking work of hand-raking the mussel beds and crating their haul each day in bitterly cold winds. The attention to quotidian labor in harsh conditions at times calls to mind Luchino Visconti\u2019s classic 1948 neorealist docudrama about dirt-poor Sicilian fishermen,\u00a0La Terra Trema<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\tFriction between the brothers sits just under the surface from the start. Dyfan\u2019s three boys pitch in with the work, unlike Jack\u2019s surly teenage son Tom (Henry Lawfull), a repeated no-show. When Jack sends his brother\u2019s youngest home because his hands are too frozen to be of use, Dyfan takes understated jabs at his manhood by saying he\u2019s too soft on the lads, none more so than Tom. Dyfan later shows resentment about having kept the business afloat solo while Jack was undergoing treatment for cancer, now in remission. Theirs is not an easy fraternity. \t<\/p>\n

\tWhen an incident for which Tom is indirectly responsible leads to old-timer Bernie (Danny Webb), who makes a living from his scallop dredger, having his leg amputated, Jack takes charge of the veteran fisherman\u2019s care. He gets help \u2014 at first through his firm insistence, later voluntarily \u2014 from itinerant deckhand Daniel (Lorne MacFadyen); they chop firewood to heat Bernie\u2019s home and take his boat out to make money to pay his bills.<\/p>\n

\tThe attraction between the two men at first is so veiled it\u2019s almost undetectable, though Daniel is more obvious with his glances and the hints he drops into their terse conversations. Irish actor Ward (who played the title character in\u00a0Jimmy\u2019s Hall<\/em>\u00a0<\/a>for Ken Loach) expertly conveys the unease of a man reading and responding to the stranger\u2019s signals even as he feigns indifference, fearful of disrupting his life in a community suspicious of any digression from old-fashioned norms.<\/p>\n

\tParadoxically, it takes Daniel smacking Jack in the mouth after he allows the younger man to be humiliated in the pub to spur Jack into acting on his desires. The sex between them is fumbling, nervous and almost feral at first, then increasingly tender and uninhibited as they start stealing time together in Daniel\u2019s trailer. When the connection between them intensifies, Daniel becomes unsatisfied with clandestine hookups, wanting more, while Jack\u2019s self-denial and wariness of potential exposure are tough habits to kick.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\u201cThis is my town,\u201d Jack tells Daniel by way of explanation. \u201cI live here.\u201d But no less affecting is Daniel\u2019s frustration when he asks of their relationship, \u201cWhat is this?\u201d The emotional inarticulacy of both men is quietly bruising. \t<\/p>\n

\tA million conflicts play across Ward\u2019s face, notably Jack\u2019s longing for a more fulfilling life and the sudden reminder that, had he made more courageous choices, that might have been an option. In a scene of crushing sadness, he sees Daniel playing pool at the pub with another man, the intimacy of their body language unmistakable.<\/p>\n

\tJack\u2019s biggest regret, however, is the hurt he stands to cause Maggie (Liz White), the wife he has genuinely loved since they were high school sweethearts. That hurt becomes an increasing inevitability once Dyfan starts making pointed comments about Jack\u2019s younger friend helping him take care of Bernie despite hardly knowing the old man, or Jack and Daniel taking Bernie\u2019s boat out for the day, with no evidence of any fishing being done.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\tThat homophobic Dyfan chooses to drop these insinuations over a dinner with his brother and their wives makes his behavior especially toxic, not to mention that his spite is driven in part by his maneuverings to buy out Jack\u2019s share of the business.<\/p>\n

\tWalsh is an assured storyteller, aided considerably by the gritty textures and searching close-ups of DP Sam Goldie\u2019s camera, which shapes an alternate landscape from Jack\u2019s lined, stubbly face, his calloused hands, bulky wool sweaters and water-slicked rubber waders. The cloudy skies cast much of the film in shadow, the chief exception being a rare patch of sunlight seen from underwater during a swim off Bernie\u2019s boat. Or is it a memory of a much earlier time on holiday with Maggie, when she first had an inkling of her husband\u2019s secret? \t<\/p>\n

\tUnfolding to the regionally inflected sounds of\u00a0Felix R\u00f6sch\u2019s delicate score,\u00a0On the Sea\u00a0<\/em>takes some unsurprising turns, sketched out in foreshadowing, but also less expected developments, particularly once Maggie gets past her anger and her rock-solid strength of character kicks in. Tom, too, after keeping a hostile distance from his father, makes a late display of loyalty that silences his uncle. And a scene in which Tom\u2019s girlfriend (Leisa Gwenllian) exchanges friendly words with Jack at his most isolated is lovely.<\/p>\n

\tWalsh is too subtle in her writing to concoct a happy ending in which everything falls into place. But there\u2019s comfort and even a kind of peaceful deliverance in the stirring closing images of a film that stays with you.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s tempting to describe English novelist-turned-filmmaker Helen Walsh\u2019s fine-grained gay love story\u00a0On the Sea\u00a0as another version of\u00a0God\u2019s Own Country, switching out Yorkshire farmland for coastal waters in North Wales. But that would be unfairly reductive. Like Francis Lee\u2019s smoldering 2017 debut feature, this is a rugged, elemental drama whose slow-burn potency plays out against a landscape as bleak as it is beautiful, where taciturn men are locked into restrictive codes of masculinity set in stone generations ago.\u00a0 A palpable sense of place, of milieu and of working-class lives in which pleasure, passion and desire have been dulled courses through this atmospherically charged film like the icy seawater and rough currents […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3474,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,1257,59,60,2001,2002],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hollywood","category-lgbtq","category-movie-reviews","category-movies","category-provincetown-film-festival","category-wales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3473\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3474"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsmag.live\/ja\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}