The Incomer is a movie that pushed my buttons, both the good ones and the bad ones. The incomer of the title is Daniel, played by Domhnall Gleeson, who arrives one day, alone, on the Isle of Auk, an almost entirely uninhabited island off the coast of Scotland. The problem here is that it’s almost uninhabited—Isla and Sandy live there, and they’re a 30-something brother and sister who’ve been there pretty much their whole lives. Just the two of them. Their father gave himself to the finfolk who live in the sea around the island, but before he did that, he told the two that they had to protect themselves and the island from all incomers. Meaning murder, probably. Of course, Daniel didn’t just show up accidentally, he’s been sent by the local government to relocate Isla and Sandy to the mainland.
The broad arc of the film is not terribly unexpected, in that Daniel gets captured, there’s a lot of butting of heads, understanding is reached, and eventually Daniel helps the two defend their island against others who would have them move. The details are a lot more fun, steeped in Celtic mythology, which I’m a sucker for, and I was delighted to see John Hannah show up as a fin man who’s constantly trying to convince Isla to throw herself into the sea so he can eat her.
The movie is very much a comedy, and while that’s not a problem, the kind of comedy it sometimes presents made me grit my teeth. There’s plenty that’s surprising and just silly enough, but there’s also a lot that’s aggressively surprising and too silly, too loud, and too obvious. Comedy that announces I AM FUNNY is not very funny for me, and there’s more of that here than I’d like.
Still, I did laugh, plenty of times, and there’s a sweetness and melancholy to the film’s end that I welcomed, though it didn’t quite fit with the rest of what we’ve seen. And more than anything, it made me wish the entire movie had been more like that, a story with a few more layers.
The Incomer is in theaters.
