Hamish Considine is a man wound so tight he seems one breath away from snapping. He stands with his back perfectly straight, so rigid he is nearly impenetrable. And then the unthinkable happens, and he stiffens up just a bit more. Hamish (played by Cosmo Jarvis) is immediately off putting. He’s standoffish, he’s rude to a rental car worker, and he is difficult to pin down. But before we even have time to formulate a full opinion of him, he is involved in a horrific head on collision, mere moments into the runtime of Antonia Campbell-Hughes’ feature, IT IS IN US ALL.
Hamish sustains serious injuries and as he is recuperating in the hospital, he is told by a doctor that he is a very lucky man to be alive right now. In the same breath however, he is also informed that a 15-year-old boy in the other car died. It is a heavy blow, and irrevocably shifts whatever direction the viewer may have thought IT IS IN US ALL would take. The movie does not let us sit with the weight of this news in the moment, as Hamish is so hard to read, it’s difficult to discern what would be going through his head. This lack of emotional release could come from the fact that Hamish largely does not have anyone that he could share that burden with. He has traveled to this particular location in Ireland to pay respects to his recently deceased aunt, his last living family member aside from his father who lives thousands of miles away. He speaks with his father frequently over Skype, but it becomes clear that he has no interest in getting into the feelings aspect of his son being responsible for the death of a child.
He spends his days roaming around the beautiful scenery of this small town and encountering various locals who seem to know a great deal more about his family and his past than he does. It is incredibly disorienting to be in an unfamiliar place where everyone is familiar with you and your history. At night, he returns to his aunt’s home, a bleak and colorless place, devoid of any personality of containing only the simplest of furniture. It’s nearly always overcast, wet and gloomy, the perfect match to Hamish’s inner life at this moment. A break in this monotony arrives however, when he meets Evan (played by Rhys Mannion), a friend of the dead boy who was the only other person in the car with him at the time of the wreck. In Evan, Hamish finds the most unlikely of connections. They begin spending the days and nights together, with Evan challenging everything Hamish has come to believe about life and about himself.
It is disarming to see a grown man get jerked around by a 15-year-old kid, but IT IS IN US ALL shows us that Hamish feels a certain degree of guilt, loneliness, and a deep-seated desire to learn more about himself that keeps him coming back to Evan. When they are together, it feels to the audience like they are the only two people in the world. This feeling persists even when Evan integrates Hamish into his group of good friends. It is objectively strange, and maybe even concerning, that Hamish would be hanging out with a bunch of kids like this, but we get the sense that this is something that he never had. This is a group of young boys who treat each other with care. They’re tender and sweet and gentle in a way that becomes increasingly difficult after life beats you down as it has for Hamish. These boys are the direct opposite of Hamish’s stiffness and hard edges. The first time that we see him smile throughout the whole movie is when he is watching the boys perform a sloppily choreographed dance routine to “Genie in a Bottle.” Things seem so simple in this moment, but of course, nothing can stay that simple, especially when a boy has just been killed.
IT IS IN US ALL is a movie that manages to be subtle and loud, all within the same heartbeat. Jarvis’ performance as Hamish, particularly as he adjusts relative to the physical injuries the character sustains, carries with it an element of constant suffocation. You feel desperate for him to just come up for air for even a single moment. His voice often betrays his hard exterior, sounding like he is one step away from breaking down in tears. The film at times feels like a ticking time bomb, counting down the seconds to Hamish’s inevitable breakdown, and when he finally does, he comes alive. In the scene that he shares with the dead boy’s mother (played by writer/director Antonia Campbell-Hughes), his face transforms in ways that would’ve seemed impossible when we first met the character.
IT IS IN US ALL asks for a lot of reflection from its audience as it presents us with several big questions and ideas. It confronts the idea of purpose as it relates to where you belong, where you should be, where you are needed, versus where you may want to be. It highlights the danger that comes along with allowing someone to need you as much as Hamish and Evan end up needing one another. It asks if sometimes the bravest and most compassionate thing you can do for another person is simply letting go. There is also certainly an allegory about motherhood and creation to be explored that feels a bit shoehorned in towards the end, surrounded by all the emotional and existential richness that has already been built up. But perhaps most poignantly, IT IS IN US ALL demonstrates the permanence and impact there is to every action. Once you have said things they cannot be unsaid, and once you have done things they cannot be undone. That is the burden of being alive and the responsibility that comes with living among other people; you truly have to make the choice as an individual if that is something you want to share, or if it wouldn’t be better to go it alone.
Tags: Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Cosmo Jarvis, Film Festivals, It Is In Us All, Rhys Mannion, SXSW, SXSW 2022
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