James Gillespie is 12 years old. The world he knew is changing. Haunted by a secret, he has become a stranger in his own family. He is drawn to the canal where he creates a world of his own. He finds an awkward tenderness with Margaret Anne, a vulnerable 14 year old expressing a need for love in all the wrong ways, and befriends Kenny, who possesses an unusual innocence in spite of the harsh surroundings.

“It has been more than 20 years since the release of Lynne Ramsay’s beguiling 1999 debut, and the decades have done little to wither the poetic originality that clings to the film like a diaphanous shroud.” – David Harris, Spectrum Culture