✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
United Kingdom · 2019
1h 29m
Director Mark Jenkin
Starring Edward Rowe, Giles King, Mary Woodvine, Isaac Woodvine
Genre Drama
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A fisherman is incensed after his brother repurposes their father's old vessel as a tourist boat, forcing him to move to the estate far from London. As he tries to return the family name to its old place, he finds himself in conflict with the locals, causing a rift that is deepened by tragedy.
Ultimately a small tale of the struggles of ordinary working-class people against the tourist trade, in a wider political context, the film exists in a deeply contemporary space. Through its filmmaking craft, this debut remarkably operates in a timeless space.
Screen Daily by Demetrios Matheou
That the story doesn’t play like a soap, or indeed a Ken Loach film, is down to the director’s technical and narrative approach.
The engaging and defiantly hand-crafted, offbeat experiment Bait may be black and white, but its insights, thankfully, come in subtly graded shades of gray.
The Observer (UK) by Mark Kermode
It’s a genuine modern masterpiece, which establishes Jenkin as one of the most arresting and intriguing British film-makers of his generation.
A formally dazzling, half-comic portrait of a community struggling against the tides of change.
The Guardian by Peter Bradshaw
What an intriguing and unexpectedly watchable film. Bait is an experiment – and a successful one.
The Film Stage by Rory O'Connor
Jenkin’s script is peppered with comedy, occasionally of a more subtle variety than men dressed as penises—even if that drew the biggest laugh.
The Hollywood Reporter by Stephen Dalton
Jenkin's heavily stylized debut is a disorienting experience at first, but it ultimately creates a boldly Expressionistic mood of uncanny beauty and mesmerizing otherness.
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