Good Favour

A teenager appears suddenly into a secluded, devout Catholic community. Dressed in dirty clothes and injured, Tom (Vincent Romeo) explains to the locals that he has been living in the woods, but his parents died and he has no one else. The community takes him in and teaches him their ways. He blends in well, helping the adults with the daily workload and playing with the other kids. But the mystery of who he is and where he comes from remains.

Rebecca Daly has produced some fascinating films between her award-winning short ‘Joyriders’ and features ‘The Other Side of Sleep’ and ‘Mammal.’ Aside from M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘The Village’, Daly’s third feature draws closest comparisons with ‘Mammal’, as both movies hone in on a young male protagonist and the unexplainable hold he has on those around him. The lead of this film, Vincent Romeo, isn’t quite as compelling as Barry Keoghan. At the same time, he does possess a similar menacing quality as the film enters its third act.

‘Good Favour’ is a strange and interesting film but inconsistent. One is intrigued by its themes from the get-go. The film observes the emergence of the young male’s sexual maturity as Tom is filmed sweating in bed, and sharing looks with a girl his age called Shoshanna (Clara Rugaard). At one point, she catches him naked. His sallower skin compared to those around him makes the character stand out as an ‘other.’ There is a kind of stilted style to the acting, especially in the town elder characters, Mikkel (Lars Brygmann) and Hans (Alexandre Willaume), though one supposes that this is intentional and meant to be reflective of the stiltedness of the community.

As the film progresses, it abandons such thematic exploration and progressively falls apart. Its twist is too on the nose and annoyingly predictable. The fact that the community is so utterly devout, with religion incorporated into the children’s education and even playtime, gestures at what’s coming from a mile away. The means by which it all wraps up is worse still. Not only does it feel anti-climactic and dissatisfying, but there’s an unpleasant coldness in the conclusion.