Ben Wheatley is one of the most gifted young filmmakers in the UK, with his previous films Sightseers and Kill List managing to make waves on both sides of the Atlantic. His third film, A Field In England, was another sidestep to disarm the audience by a director who delights in defying expectations. Aside from the countryside setting, could there be two more different films than Sightseers and A Field in England?
Set in the throes of the English Civil War, the titular field is the location of a supposed heap of buried treasure, which a small band of deserters stumble upon when, in search of an alehouse, they meet O’Neill. He’s a thief on the run from one of the deserters, Whitehead, but he tells the group about the treasure in the field, which also happens to be filled with psychedelic mushrooms.
The Civil War hasn’t really been covered in movies recently, which might be surprising given the current popularity of period TV drama – looking back, choosing to cover that period in such an interesting way seems so obvious in retrospect. Casting a series of relatively famous (in the UK) comic actors in very serious roles – Reece Shearsmith (The League of Gentlemen), Julian Barratt (The Mighty Boosh), Michael Smiley (Spaced) – is something that has been done on British television before, but not so much in a film. Make no mistake about it, A Field in England is absolutely not a comedy, instead using its comic cast to convey desperation and solitude.
It was also revolutionary in its release strategy, coming out on the same day across every possible platform – cinema, DVD, VOD, and TV – which made for an engrossing experience on Twitter as people watched together. A sense of community immediately sprung around the film in that moment, which only serves to make it more difficult to forget. Ben Wheatley is a director to watch out for, and it’s only a matter of time before he’s given a huge budget to work with.