There are some films that you know will be quality simply by the actors who have agreed to be in them. They’re like a kitemark. Emily Watson is such an actor, as is Paul Mescal, who hasn’t put a foot wrong since Normal People and must have an excellent agent or just a feel for these sorts of things, even if he’s bound to turn up in the Marvel franchise one of these days. Both Watson and Mescal star in God’s Creatures, so it’s double kitemarked, you could say. It’s a tough watch, and a tense watch, but it’s powerfully affecting and plainly quality through and through. It asks: mothers will always instinctively protect their sons, but is that sometimes misguided?

Written by Shane Cowley and co-directed by Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer, the film is set in a small coastal village in Ireland at an undetermined time, although, purely from the look of the cars it’s possibly the 1990s. This is a community that’s close-knit, which is both a blessing and a curse, and a place where men and women know their roles. The men are out on their fishing boats all day while the women cook, clean, raise children and work in the fish-processing factory. Aileen (Watson), a supervisor at the factory who is obviously well-liked and respected, is thrilled when her son, Brian (Mescal), suddenly returns home from Australia unannounced. He simply walks into the pub during a wake and because Watson is Watson her character doesn’t have to say anything for us to know she is overjoyed. We can see it in her face, which is like a flower turning towards the sun. Even though she has a daughter, Erin (Toni O’Rourke), we understand instantly that he is the apple of her eye and has possibly been spoiled. There is nothing on the surface to say Brian is anything but a lovely lad yet we feel uneasy about him. Why has he returned? Why did he never contact his family from Australia, thereby breaking his mother’s heart? Why is there some tension between him and his father, Con (Declan Conlon)? Why does he shed his dirty clothing expecting his mother to pick it up? Meanwhile, a local girl, Sarah (Aisling Franciosi), seems to have mixed feelings about his reappearance. This is all told in small, nuanced moments rather than spelled out. For example, a woman is reluctant to pass on to Brian the clothes of a son she has lost at sea. Nothing is said. The moment she could hand them over she simply doesn’t. It’s the opposite of being spoon-fed, whatever that might be. In fact, I don’t think the script can run to many pages because so much of this is unspoken. No one says: do your own laundry, mate.

This is a slow burn until the midway point when Aileen gets a call from the police saying that Brian has been accused of rape. Can she provide an alibi for him? Her answer to this question will have terrible repercussions, while his accuser is ostracised by a community that seeks to protect its men. What has she done? This isn’t an eventful film as such yet, right to the shocking end, we are kept constantly on edge. The soundscape is of drums and atonal sawing. Storms lash as waves crash and dogs bark. The landscape is beautiful in its way but also bleak. Watson’s performance is quiet, watchful, yet fearless and extraordinary. As for Mescal, we don’t see Brian doing anything reprehensible or violent, yet he somehow brings a sense of violence to the character, which is quite miraculous. I will curse the day Marvel snares him, as it inevitably will.