While recently browsing Netflix, I stumbled upon the 2017 romance/ drama film "God’s Own Country," directed by Francis Lee, and oh, what a film it is! As some critics have aptly put it, this film feels like a cross between "Wuthering Heights" and "Brokeback Mountain." However, where "Brokeback Mountain "left my 15-year-old, closeted self feeling emotionally distraught when it came out in 2005, "God’s Own Country" is refreshingly hopeful, even while that optimism is contrasted by the bleak, rural Yorkshire landscape.
Johnny Saxby (Josh O’Connor) is an elderly farmer’s son who must, in order to keep the farm afloat, run it mostly by himself. In coping with his loneliness, Johnny spends his nights binge-drinking in pubs and engaging in random sexual encounters with men he doesn’t know or care about. All of that changes, however, when Gheorghe (Alec Secareanu), a Romanian migrant worker, is hired to help the family out for a few weeks.
Without spoiling much, I have to say, where "Brokeback Mountain" centralized the lead characters’ struggles with homosexuality in the West during the 60’s and 70’s, "God’s Own Country" foregrounds Johnny’s feelings of isolation due to literal, geographical isolation without many other options presented to him, not so much about his sexuality. Not until midway through the film, during a scene in which Gheorghe and Johnny look across the slate-gray sky, with its white rising sun and fields spanning beyond the boundaries of the camera’s lens, do we get a sense of the sublime vastness of the land, of the beauty and loneliness closely entwined. The most compelling aspect of this scene, however, is the look of awe not at the landscape but shared between Johnny and Gheorghe as they reckon with their place in it.
The actors, up-and-coming yet powerful in their portrayals of these characters, demonstrated immense vulnerability, captivating sensuality, and a dynamic emotional range over the duration of this film, and I was hooked from start to finish. Films like "God’s Own Country" give me hope and optimism for younger generations of LGBTQ youth facing difficult times. Would that the high school version of myself had seen this movie back in the day!
