AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
You know when you see a movie you can't shake so you just have to talk about it? The new movie "Bring Them Down" is one of those. It's set in Ireland. Think harsh and isolated, not green and romantic. The setup seems simple. Neighboring families raise sheep for a living. Both families have difficult fathers and only children who are sons. Then two sheep belonging to the O'Sheas maybe turn up dead on the Keely's land. And let's just say, a feud kicks off that's been simmering for generations. "Bring Them Down" is written and directed by Christopher Andrews, and do I ever want to talk to him about it. Welcome.
CHRISTOPHER ANDREWS: Thank you very much for having me. I like that. I'm going to use that. Sounds good.
RASCOE: (Laughter) So this movie was first pitched to me by a colleague who described it as, like, a livestock thriller. And I - you know, I'm thinking, like, what is a livestock thriller?
ANDREWS: Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head. It's this feud between two families that live cheek to jowl and at the bottom of this mountain and have these difficulties. But on the top of the mountain, they share that space, and their animals live next to each other, and there's this idea of a collective responsibility. It's sort of examining people that have a complex relationship both in their work and then home lives, too.
RASCOE: To get a flavor, let's play a scene from early in the movie when the two sons of these families come into contact. Jack Keely, played by Barry Keoghan, says he found the two dead rams. Michael O'Shea, played by Christopher Abbott, is trying to get more information.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BRING THEM DOWN")
CHRISTOPHER ABBOTT: (As Michael O'Shea) Can I see them?
BARRY KEOGHAN: (As Jack Keely) No, you can't.
ABBOTT: (As Michael O'Shea) Why? Do they have any symptoms?
KEOGHAN: (As Jack Keely) Yeah, swollen bellies and stuff. Sure, you know what they say - where there's livestock, there's dead stock.
RASCOE: Where there's livestock, there's dead stock. That feels like a very ominous line.
ANDREWS: (Laughter) Yeah. No, it really is. And it's a line that came from talking to shepherds. You know, what they talk about, I mean - you know, where there is livestock, there's dead stock. You have diseases. You have predators. And so there's a percentage of animals that they'll lose each year, especially through the winter. If it goes above that, then suspicions are already elevated. But the fact they're talking about two rams is very, very specific and unusual.
RASCOE: And we're talking about generations here, right? At one point, Michael's father makes a reference to something that hasn't been done in, like, 500 years in his family. So this is generations and generations living this certain lifestyle.
ANDREWS: Yeah. I originally wrote the first draft based on where I was brought up in Cumbria in the Lake District, which is in the Northwest of England. The shepherds and the farmers that I know up there, their families have been there for six, seven, eight hundred years, and they can - they actually can mark the lineage back and see where the original houses were built on the lowlands. And the mountains have been separated in the same way. And it's the same in Ireland, especially on the west coast of Ireland. These families have been there for hundreds of years, living and working next to each other. So these tiny little things that can - you know, disagreements over a gate or a fence post can then form a little callous and fester over the years.
RASCOE: And there is this sort of emotional inheritance, especially between the fathers and the sons. And the O'Shea father - I mean, he's hard. He's very difficult.
ANDREWS: They're looking backwards as opposed to looking forward. They've got this reverence for their forefathers, and they're protecting that heritage and the way that they shepherd. He's kind of imprisoned by all these rules and all these kind of expectations that he's piled on himself and now he's passing on to his son. And the fact that he has - sees himself having such little agency and gets so angry, has so much rage in him - that, too, was affecting his son.
And that was very much something that I was trying to explore - what I'd inherited from mine - from my father but mostly from my grandfather. My father passed away when I was very young, and this influence of two quite fierce grandfathers was the starting point for me. And then, as I started writing the second draft, I became a father myself and had this little boy, little thing. And I suddenly was thinking about how - you know, how do I plug the hole so he doesn't get infected with all these negative things that I've been infected by through this kind of heritage?
RASCOE: So many of the reviews use this phrase, toxic masculinity, to describe the movie. How do you feel about that?
ANDREWS: I feel - you know, it's definitely a huge part of the story. Most of it comes from this lack of being able to communicate. It's - where I'm from in the north of England, men don't communicate. Men don't feel comfortable in sharing how they feel. It's seen as a sign of weakness instead of a sign of strength, which it is.
RASCOE: What's it been like for you to share this film internationally?
ANDREWS: It's been amazing. I mean, really, I haven't read any reviews. I thought that the bad ones would be bad for me and the good ones would be bad for me, so I've kind of kept my eyes and my ears closed in that sense. But people have been telling me that it's been, you know, really positive. And so my experience has just been traveling around and doing Q&As and meeting people. And the response has been overwhelmingly engaging in the story, this idea of two neighboring farms that go to war, and once they've gone to war, what does it take to finish a war?
And, you know, when I first started writing it, the world was in a very different place than it is today. But it seems to be even more pertinent and important question to ask. And people are having discussions, you know, after the film is played about our responsibility in this world - not just our nation's responsibility, but our responsibility of - as individuals, of how we treat our neighbors.
RASCOE: That's writer and director Christopher Andrews. His new movie is "Bring Them Down." Thank you so much for joining us.
ANDREWS: My pleasure. Thank you for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
