Carbon & Water

Writer: Christopher Bourne

Director: Christopher Clarke

The district nurse in Christopher Bourne and Christopher Clarke’s new film puts himself in a complicated position when he moves in with lonely patient Vince and then becomes the object of his growing obsession with the younger medical professional. Carbon & Water is a LGTBQIA+ story available on digital platforms that never quite decides whether it wants to be an elicit thriller, a study in later life loneliness or a commentary on feeling adrift from the LGTBQIA+ community in a small village, but Clarke’s shot selection and management of the camera along with Kyle Falero’s cinematography are the film’s most interesting contributions.

Following a couple of heart attacks, Vince is expecting a visit from his usual district nurse when Carl turns up instead. Initially suspicious, Vince quickly warms to Carl and, to stave off loneliness, invites him to rent the spare room. But their relationship is complicated further by Vince’s growing interest in Carl who starts to retreat from the intensity of Vince’s needs, while best friend and some time lover Bob can only look on with concern.

Bourne and Clarke’s film certainly has an intriguing premise although starts to confuse itself with some contradictory story points that make it difficult for the viewer to really understand where their sympathies should lie. Vince, from the start, is an awkward and sometimes aggressive presence, and while Clarke emphasises his routine isolation, Vince’s candid self-absorption and uncomfortable attentions to Carl make him a challenging protagonist. Do Bourne and Clarke want us to care about this man or to believe his unwanted attentions are explicable as a symptom of that loneliness? The many close-ups of Vince glaring at Carl in a predatory and possessive way, following him on walks around the beautiful seaside village and rifling through his things suggest otherwise. The growing sense of ownership over Carl makes Vince difficult to like and a refusal to take a polite no for an answer means there is an unresolved murkiness in the film that undermines its other themes.

Clarke’s camera is also in conflict with Vsevolod Polonsky’s TV movie composition that often makes light of these scenarios, treated like sitcom interludes that have an uneasy partnership with the glowering presentation of the central character and the creation of tension throughout, seeing Carl from Vince’s watchfully point of view as well as the low shots that continually imply menace – this is skilled work from Clarke but adds to an unbalanced tone between the creative visions for the film. Set in Yorkshire, Falero’s exterior cinematography is arresting, capturing the intensity of the physical location but also the stunning seascape, a place where humanity seems tiny against the ancient rocks and fossilised creatures preserved in them.

Acting is unfortunately fairly stilted throughout and both Malcolm Connolly as a continually grouchy Vince and Clarke as his friend Bob never quite overcome the falsity of the scenarios they create, although the unconvincing dialogue by Bourne doesn’t help them to ground their characters in a firmer reality. Darren Haywood as Carl has the best of it with a performance that captures the professional carer who begins to first laugh off Vince’s advances before more firmly setting them down, but with no significant resolution to all of the building indications of tension, Carbon & Water eventually fizzles out.

Carbon & Water is released on REVEEL, TUBI,OTT STUDIO, Here Media, Future Today, KNG TV, Amazon PrimeVideo from 12 July.