Wreckers

This low-key, high-tension British indie drama has Claire Foy and Benedict Cumberbatch as Dawn and David, two teachers who move to a rundown house outside the Fenlands village where David grew up. They have shared and solo motives for the move: they want to start a family, an area of difficulty for them, and he wants ‘to do some good in the place where my dad was a tosser’. Place and past become even more significant when David’s brother, Nick (Shaun Evans), appears unannounced to stay. He’s a war vet with scars on his chest and mind, and his presence stirs up buried feelings between Dawn, David and others in the village. Writer-director Dictynna Hood manages to keep a lid on the more melodramatic elements of her plot and teases understated performances from her three leads, but the film is too sketchy and underdeveloped to convince fully, even if the relationship between Foy and Cumberbatch as a couple in crisis is well-handled.