What’s it about?

After 40 years in the United States, Donal (Alan Cumming) reluctantly returns to his family’s whisky distillery in Scotland at the invitation of his brother Sandy (Brian Cox)

What’d we think?

With a cast as charming as this in the beautiful scenery of Scotland, I really wanted to like Glenrothan. It’s unfortunately a clumsy affair, hampered by a weak script and frankly amateurish direction from Brian Cox in his directorial debut. The story of estranged brothers coming together to hash out their differences is well-worn territory, but that doesn’t mean it has to be trite. Glenrothan moves between its emotional beats like an old car grinding through low gears, never quite finding its stride.

There’s never any real sense of animosity between the brothers, and when we finally learn the cause of their falling out, it’s so low-stakes as to be baffling. The actors are all charming enough, but the dialogue is so limp that you can hardly blame them for doing the bare minimum to get it across the finish line. Some serious pacing issues mean that we’re too long arriving at what should be the central conflict, the obvious solution is arrived at far too quickly, and the resolution feels far too drawn out (even when it clocks in at just under 100 minutes)

It wouldn’t have taken much for this to be a cosy little comfort watch, but the lack of polish makes it hard to recommend.