MY SAILOR, MY LOVE - Mark Reviews Movies

My Sailor, My Love, Music Box Films

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 21, 2023

To look at Howard (James Cosmo) and Annie (Brid Brennan), two of the main characters of My Sailor, My Love, is to see a lovely and unlikely romance. They're both up there in years, past the time that a good number of people think they'd be able to find or enjoy love, and meet when Howard's daughter hires Annie to clean her father's house, make him meals, and just make sure he's doing okay twice a week.

He's a tough old guy, worn and weary after a lifetime as a sailor, and she's quiet, sweet, and compassionate, although she also has been through enough to call out Howard when his usually grumpy manner—to put it generously—makes him too much of a hurtful pain. They couldn't be much different, and that, along with just loneliness and the human need for companionship, is why they're seemingly perfect for each other. Everyone finds them and their relationship to be so endearing and hopeful and a lesson that no one should ever give up on the idea of love.

Well, almost everyone feels that way about Howard and Annie. The exception in Kirsi Vikman and Jimmy Karlsson's screenplay opens up an entirely different way of looking at the two and, more to the point, Howard for who he really is, behind the veneer of being one half of the couple that quickly becomes the talk of a little, coastal Irish town. Director Klaus Härö's film pointedly presents the sweet side of the story we expect and want to see against the incredibly bitter reality beneath the surface of it. There are no easy answers or simple feelings here, and if that isn't the promise and peril of love, what is?

The holdout on finding Howard and Annie's relationship to be adorable and optimistic is his daughter Grace (Catherine Walker), a nurse who lives in town and makes a point of making a regular drive outside of the village limits to visit her father whenever she has a free moment. She's worried about her old man, of course, because Howard lives alone, has had some health issues in the past, and stubbornly refuses to ask for or accept help from anyone, especially the only child of his who still lives in Ireland and routinely communicates with him. He has two sons, but both of them are often away on business, calling infrequently and only showing up for special occasions, like the birthday party Howard has near the start of the story.

Something is amiss here. That much is clear, but wisely, the film doesn't spell it out for us, give us a simple point of sympathy, or condemn a single character for some real or perceived wrong or wrongs here. It's all a matter of perspective, both at first, when we're still gauging who these characters are and what the nature of their relationship is, and later, after we have the important details but know it's impossible to fully judge a person for one aspect of his or her life.

From Howard's point of view, his daughter is a busybody, seemingly more concerned with him, his life, his alleged problems, and his future than she is with anything to do with herself. He's content to be alone, sitting in his cottage, doing his crossword puzzles, washing his clothes in the kitchen, and not worrying about cleaning up after himself. This is how it has been for some time, after all, since Howard is a widower and retired and too set in his ways for anything to change—not that he wants anything about his life to change, thank you very much.

From Grace's perspective, though, her father is obstinate, selfish, and unappreciative of all the sacrifices she has made for him. She has made them, too, if Grace's work schedule, which she adjusts in order to have more time to spend with Howard, and her marriage to Martin (Aidan O'Hare) are any indications. Her husband's a nice guy, making her a meal when he thinks they'll have a night alone together and giving Grace the room to be with her dad for all these years. It clearly has taken a toll on him, though, but no matter how many times Martin tells her they need to talk about this arrangement and what it has done to their relationship, Grace is just as silent and stubborn as her father.

Inevitably, all of these conflicts will come to a head at some point in the film, although the subtleties of the character development, the performances, and the escalation of those conflicts continue when it comes to that. First, of course, there's the relationship between Howard and Annie into which to delve. By the time it arrives, we know Howard isn't exactly the affectionate or patient or considerate type, yet Annie seems to awaken all of that and more within him. It comes across as sincere, because it almost certainly is, but is that enough to counter how poorly and even cruelly this man treats Grace now and has treated his daughter for her entire life?

It's not a question any of us can answer, but that's not the point of this film. No, it's simply to give us these perspectives—not only the ones belonging to Howard and Grace, but also Annie's, as this woman, who knows from experience with her now-dead husband what abuse is like, has weigh her feelings for this man with her growing awareness that there is another side to him. My Sailor, My Love doesn't try to tell us how to feel about these characters and their inherent contradictions, and that makes it a richer, more complex experience than it might have been.

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