Jetsam

Simon Welsford’s homegrown mystery thriller opens with a young woman (Alex Reid) being washed up on a bleak Kent beach. Catching her breath and collecting her thoughts, she stumbles along the sands and encounters a young man (Jamie Draven) in a similar predicament. She helps him up and he mumbles something to her… before lashing out and giving chase. You need to start concentrating at this juncture or you might miss a trick among the many jolting flashbacks and twists as Reid’s increasingly paranoid character tries to piece together events leading to her being dumped in the sea. Why is she being pursued? Could corporate espionage have something to do with it? How else would you explain all those shady, earpiece-wearing characters lurking in the background?

Apparently made for £3,000, Welsford’s well-mounted debut delivers ambiguity in spades – perhaps too many spades. Yet there’s something about the expressive leads’ plight, the foreboding atmosphere generated by Zac Nicholson’s impressive cinematography and Mat Davidson’s fine score, that makes this often confusing thriller well worth the endurance.