During a vacation – her first in four years – on the coast of Northern
Ireland, Hanna (Polley) inadvertently ends up on an oilrig, nursing
Josef (Robbins), a man who’s been severely burned in a rig accident.
His corneas are also affected, rendering him blind for a couple of weeks.
Josef is intrigued by the woman he can’t see. Hanna, who wears a hearing
aid, talks softly. She’s secretive, often answering his questions with a
single word or silence. She’s trained as a nurse. But why has she been
working in a factory? She’s got an accent. But where is she from? She
makes calls to a woman (
Julie Christie). But why does she hang up?
As Josef begins to reveal his own dark past, finally so too does Hanna.
And when she does, the horrifying details come gushing out like a floodgate.
I liked this movie very much. As Hanna and Josef reveal themselves to each other, Hanna more slowly than Josef, the relationship builds. A thought-provoking movie not only about Hanna and Josef, but about the other characters who have chosen a life of isolation on an oil rig in the middle of nowhere.
Sarah Polley and Tim Robbins do a pretty good job with this movie. Their separate struggles and the bond the two form, whether because or in spite of their individual plight, makes for a fairly poignant story. It`s worth seeing, even though I generally prefer a more escapist flick than this represents.