That phrase ‘Signs of Life’ can be applied to a number of different scenarios often biological and on occasion is used to check on the well being of someone having been kidnapped by a malevolent force and has most recently been implemented when enquiries have been made about Prince Harry to Meghan Markle. But here it’s taken in a wider context initially with Anne (Sarah-Jane Potts) a mute woman taking a lone, and hoped for quiet holiday to contemplate an episode in her life but soon finds that her hotel with its loutish and threatening young Brit bloke abroad in the neighbouring room playing loud music throughout the night that sees her fleeing for her safety and spending the subsequent days wandering around the island alone.
Isolated and sleeping rough her holiday could only have been made worse if she’d booked an AirBnB on the Gaza strip but as she fills her days she frequently sees Bill (David Ganly) jogging around the sea front and each catching one another’s eye. His willingly, hers far less so wanting to maintain her own solitude. But Bill is as lonely as her though not out of want and recognising a fellow loner he invites her to stay at the huge villa he has rented but resides in on his own. With Anne sleeping rough it’s a tempting proposition albeit fraught with potential danger that makes her understandably reticent about but eventually needs must and the pair tentatively form if not an initial friendship then certainly companions. He’s open yet aggrieved about why he’s in a huge villa on his own whereas she is far more guarded and able to only communicate by a pen and pad that she carries with her.
There’s two beguiling performances here by the two leads – both are damaged people looking for hope. Bill’s smile hides frustration and despair and Anne’s silence is as much about her bottling up an upsetting episode in her and an event that is only hinted at in the most subtle of ways. Together they make an unlikely and fragile couple .
Initially Signs of Life it plays like the 2023 film ‘Drift’ with Cynthia Erivo finding herself alone on a holiday island but this develops into an engaging low key study of loneliness but hope also. Writer –Director Joseph Milson, himself an actor, has put together a warm engaging and very human drama about grief.
related feature : Charlotte Jackson Coleman talks single mum thriller ‘Secrets’, SKY sports TV, Keith Lemon and more!
related feature ; Cynthia Erivo in ‘Drift’ reviewed here
Here’s the Signs of Life trailer….
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