Guilt is My Shadow

Film noir meets rural drama in Ray Kellino’s Guilt is My Shadow, a psychological thriller set on a small-town farm in the pastoral setting of Devonshire, England. Gentleman farmer Kip’s (Patrick Holt) simple life of routine is disrupted when his estranged nephew Jamie (Peter Reynolds) arrives out of nowhere looking for a place to stay; what Kip doesn’t know is that Jamie is running from the police for his involvement in a robbery. From his first moment on screen, Jamie oozes sleazeball vibes: he’s cocky, ungrateful, smug, a liar, a thief, and a snake. When a local gas station owner (Wensley Pithey) offers him a job, Jamie pays him back by stealing from the cash register. When his abandoned wife Linda (Elizabeth Sellars) arrives to be with him, he pays her back by cheating with the town floozie (Lana Morris). So, when Linda accidentally kills him during a fight, we welcome it. And so does Kip, who by now has fallen in love with Linda, so the two of them bury Jamie’s body in the abandoned silver mine on the premises and begin to play house, which includes rescuing a beloved dog and delivering a calf together. As the title suggests, however, Linda’s moral conscience and Christian beliefs won’t let her enjoy her newfound freedom for too long. While she’s not the most talented sobber, Sellars is otherwise refreshing in the role of a woman who’s simultaneously idealistic and beaten down, her on-screen chemistry with Holt completely believable if not sizzling hot. At times the film feels like a stage play (it’s actually based on a novel), but Kellino and crew punctuate the drama with dynamic sequences like Linda’s immediate emotional meltdown after the murder or her guilt-ridden dream sequence featuring dramatic expressionism. Note the ticking clock that constantly emphasizes the tension in otherwise silent scenes.