Twig review: Sade Malone is a force of nature but crime thriller lacks suspense

In cinemas; Cert TBC

Sade Malone is a revelation in the Irish crime drama 'Twig'

Chris Wasser

Greek tragedy meets dystopian gangland misery in Marian Quinn’s ambitious Irish drama. Sade Malone is Twig, a young Dubliner whose family has experienced its fair share of tragedy.

Her brothers, Eddie (Kwaku ­Fortune) and Paulie (Justin Anene), are in deep with the wrong people and when one of them is gunned down, the other has to go into hiding.

Vicious crime lord Leon (a miscast Brían F O’Byrne) orders a lawless community to turn its back on Paulie, to let him rot in the streets. His people obey, but his defiant god-daughter Twig has other plans. To make matters complicated, she and Leon’s son Eamon (Donncha Tynan) are romantically involved.

A modern remix of Sophocles’s Antigone, Twig tells a familiar tale with a contemporary twist, and this moody, atmospheric film longs to be taken seriously. Sadly, its theatrical roots get in the way of a promising crime yarn.

Overwritten and largely ­suspenseless, Twig feels like a clunky stage play pretending to be a film, and that’s a shame. Malone, however, is a force of nature, a beguiling lead in an unsteady presentation. She ­deserves to be huge.​

Two stars