Bill Forsyth makes gently absurd comedies in which people have time to be peculiar and still make sense. We value his patience with them, though Local Hero shows how readily that fondness can let difficult questions slide.
Fi1m perspective
The villagers in Local Hero (1983) see an oil development coming and consider how much money they might make. Bill Forsyth does not treat this as a shameful lapse in otherwise decent people; he allows them to want the money without making them villains. We laughed at their cheerful readiness to cash in, because they were so plainly enjoying a prospect we might have expected them to resist. This is why we rate Forsyth: he can make people funny without deciding that their weaknesses make them contemptible.
That Sinking Feeling (1979) began his feature career with Glasgow youth-theatre actors and an affection for everyday absurdity. Gregory's Girl (1981) made adolescence the subject of his close observation and brought his breakthrough. The American turn came with Housekeeping (1987), his adaptation of Marilynne Robinson's novel, where understatement made obsessive behaviour credible. The setting changed, but his interest in letting strange people seem quite plausible remained. Being Human (1994), a portmanteau film with Robin Williams, ended that Hollywood phase after studio cuts.
On Local Hero, made with producer David Puttnam, Forsyth gives conversations space to develop without explaining everyone's oddities. Peter Riegert's Mac MacIntyre stays steady among the eccentrics, while Burt Lancaster seems entirely at ease with Felix Happer's silliness. Denis Lawson gives Gordon Urquhart a briskness that keeps the company from becoming uniformly dreamy. We can see Forsyth's judgement in the way these performances sit together: nobody has to compete for the same laugh. The screenplay allows people to become interesting beyond the business that has brought them together.
The reservation is there in Local Hero, too: Forsyth sometimes enjoys the villagers so much that the possible loss of their coast starts to seem insufficiently troubling. Their appetite for profit gives the comedy something difficult to consider, and the whimsy occasionally lets it off. We would have liked him to keep that bargain in view more firmly. Start here for the pleasure of the company, but do not expect him to ask every awkward question.
Biography
Bill Forsyth is a Scottish film director and screenwriter. Born William David Forsyth in Glasgow in 1946, he left school at 17 and spent eight years making short documentary films, forming Tree Films with Charles Gormley.
Forsyth first attracted attention with the low-budget feature That Sinking Feeling (1979). His breakthrough came with Gregory's Girl (1980), which won a BAFTA for Best Screenplay. He wrote and directed Local Hero (1983), produced by David Puttnam and starring Burt Lancaster, which earned him a BAFTA for Best Direction. Subsequent films include Comfort and Joy (1984), the adaptation Housekeeping (1987) and Being Human (1994).
