REEL | 'Bring Them Down' Shepherds Revenge x TIFF 2024

"Where there's livestock, there's dead stock."

Toronto International Film Festival

First-time writer/director Christopher Andrews makes an assured debut in his tragic Irish revenge drama, Bring Them Down. Told from the points of view of two feuding shepherding families in the remote countryside, the film focuses on the escalation between neighbours from a generational cycle of parental angst, economic uncertainty, and emotional trauma being passed down.

Notably non-Irish, American actor Christopher Abbott, sporting a convincing thick accent and speaking Gaelic, is seen calmly seething with rage as he struggles to maintain his disabled father's (Colm Meaney) prized flock of sheep and rams while being antagonized by his neighbours. Next door, a quietly angry Barry Keoghan fails to cope with his own failing family farm and parents' (Nora-Jane Noone and Paul Ready) crumbling marriage. It's a compelling yet deeply bleak exploration of the culpability of civil conflict in rural Ireland.

Everyone feels trapped by their circumstances in Bring Them Down as characters look for ways out of their struggles but only dig themselves deeper. Abbott and Keoghan are intensely chilling with both fated to needlessly repeat their generational cycles of violence. Andrews makes a confident film debut by fleshing out his characters' motives and ideologies without judgment or blame.

Bring Them Down screened at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival as part of the Special Presentations program.


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