Critic Reviews

Appearing opposite Nora-Jane Noone in a film that twists the actors round each other like competing bindweed, McGuigan could hardly have delivered a more bracing final performance. So savage is her turn that you expect water drops to hiss off her broiling skin.

The film uses the Troubles and Brexit to frame its understanding of the past and the present. Brady suggests a liminal psychological space – much like the liminal political space that Brexit created – through which Lauren and Kelly’s traumas move and, perhaps, can be understood.

Savagely powerful, directed with an unshowy but acute eye (the use of the colour red is a simple but searingly effective device), this is a terrific feature debut from the writer and director Cathy Brady.

The structure of Wildfire’s narrative doesn’t emerge out of a simplistic progression from strife to reconciliation, as writer-director Cathy Brady has her characters follow a realistically erratic trajectory.

While occasionally veering into melodrama, Brady’s feature debut is a powerful slice of kitchen-sink gloom, and a blazing portrait of women on fire, unsure of where to go in the wake of rippling tragedy.

It’s a potent drama – and a melancholy reminder of the talent that Irish cinema and TV lost in McGuigan