Solitary

The small, safe Irish village and the widower Brendan are changed when terror comes knocking and modern life forces its way in.

Brendan lives alone with his dog and his cows. His wife rests in the churchyard, and his only daughter works in Dublin. He manages, but life is fairly hard. Then something disturbing happens. A gang begins terrorizing him and the village with nightly visits, violence, and break-ins. Brendan starts getting paranoid, grows increasingly anxious, and barricades himself in, yet he refuses to leave his farm despite his worried daughter’s offer for him to move to Dublin. Eamonn Murphy creates an Irish Lars Molin–like atmosphere in his impressive debut about an aging man, his demons, and the relentless passage of life.

• Freddy Olsson