Local Hero
A quirky enchantment that makes a case for saving localness
LOCAL HERO is a comic idyll by the man who last year gave us the witty and delightful GREGORY’S GIRL. In that film Bill Forsyth told an affectionate tale of first romance among some refreshingly unsophisticated Scottish teenagers. The technical homeliness of the film was more than made up for by its drollness and charm. LOCAL HERO has the same good qualities in a more attractive package.
It, too, is a tale of courtship—in this case, the nervous amour between a rich American oil company and a poor seaside hamlet in Scotland. Both have something the other wants—money on the one hand, oil on the other—and all that stands in the way of a happy consummation is some tricky dickering.
The company sends one of its hot young negotiators to clinch the deal. McIntyre (Peter Riegert) wants to rush in, wrap things up, and get back to civilization, but en route to the remote village he is stopped in his tracks by a mountain fog, his first clue to what he’s in for.
Ferness, it turns out, is a tide pool to the twentieth century. Bits of technology and culture have drifted in, just as an occasional orange or cocoanut will wash up on its beach, but life there is basically that of a simpler, slower age. The residents are eager to sign a contract but haven’t yet learned to hurry, and Mac is forced to idle about for a week or so.
His loafing around on the beach and in town is the larger part of the movie. That sounds dull, but isn’t. Slow, yes, but an entrancing slowness. This overlooked village-beyond-the-mountains is enchanted and whacky, a combination of BRIGADOON and GREEN ACRES.
There are, for example, a number of queer birds there: a beach hermit who lives in a driftwood hut, a rainbow-haired lone punker, a clerk who sells personal care items with the tactlessness of a TV ad. The fellow who leads Mac to the pay phone becomes the official “Having any trouble with the phone?” person and even has the phone booth painted for the town’s guest—an event that half the civilians turn out to watch.
The painter isn’t the only entertainment. There’s a dance band that plays every type of American music and makes it all sound like an Irish ballad heard on a transistor radio in a locker. There’s also the military’s regular bombing practice down on the beach.
During his stay in Ferness Mac has one other thing to occupy him: the sky. Oil magnate Felix Happer (Burt Lancaster), who has a star projection dome in his office, has commissioned Mac to watch out for comets. “Keep an eye on Virgo,” he is instructed. “I want reports.” If you know Lancaster you can hear him saying it in his pithy way.
Mac gives him reports, patronizingly at first but later with real awe. There are marvels in the sky. In a climactic scene, enraptured by the Aurora Borealis and the sweetness of peasant life—and an uncertain amount of drink—Mac renounces his job, his country, and his Porsche. The spell of Ferness has taken him.
It’s a believable conversion, given the whimsical circumstances, and the point seems to be that the endangered life of localness and the simplicity is worth saving. The statement is made obliquely and with the subtle persuasiveness of enchantment. The spell worked on me, too.
Lancaster and Riegert are both good, the incidental actors are sufficient, and the scenery is lovely. The accents are a little difficult at times, and so are several of the scenes. The biggest flaw is the disconnectedness of the plot, but oddly enough that episodic aimlessness is part of the movie’s secret. Ferness doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it has a some kind power. In that time-bound place a marine biologist can seem like a mermaid, a bum can seem like a sage and a helicopter headlight can suggest a savior coming to earth in a comet.