Glenrothan (12A)
Cast: Brian Cox, Alexandra Shipp, Shirley Henderson, Alan CummingGenre: Drama
Author(s): David Ashton, Jeff Murphy
Director: Brian Cox
Release Date: 17/04/2026
Running Time: 99mins
Country: UK
Year: 2025
Forty years after he left home with his angry father's words ringing in his ears, Donal Nairn runs a successful blues club in Chicago with his daughter Amy. Donal wilfully ignores a letter from his older brother Sandy, current custodian of the family's distillery snuggled in the Scottish Highlands. Amy finds the letter, shortly after their club burns down, and she persuades her father to accompany her and granddaughter Sasha on a long overdue trip to Glenrothan.
LondonNet Film Review
Glenrothan (12A) Film Review from LondonNet
The cliches and familial angst flow almost as freely as the distilled whisky in actor Brian Cox’s disappointing film directorial debut. Shot on location around Scotland including the leafy Stirlingshire village of Gartmore, Glenrothan is an overly familiar tale of estranged brothers and deep psychological wounds, which are healed with surprisingly little emotional outlay on the part of broadly sketched characters…
Forty years after he left home with his angry father’s words ringing in his ears, Donal Nairn (Alan Cumming) has established a successful blues club in Chicago, where he tinkles the ivories and occasionally bursts into song with his daughter Amy (Alexandra Shipp), who serves drinks and works behind the bar. Donal wilfully ignores a letter from his older brother Sandy (Cox), current custodian of the family’s distillery snuggled in the verdant splendour of the Scottish Highlands.
Sandy’s health is failing and he is keen to make amends for the past. Amy finds the letter, shortly after their club burns down, and she persuades her father to accompany her and granddaughter Sasha (Alexandra Wilkie) on a long overdue trip to Glenrothan. Donal’s childhood confidante Jess (Shirley Henderson), who he abandoned without warning four decades ago, is the resident master distiller – a role once earmarked for him – and she urges reconciliation with Sandy: “Forty years is a long time to hold a grudge!” Painful memories flood back as Donal encounters faces from the past and the brothers contemplate the distillery’s future once Sandy relinquishes the reins to begin an urgent course of chemotherapy.
Glenrothan makes wee mountains out of dramatic molehills, blowing up young Donal’s clash of personalities with his bullying father to meekly justify the protracted emotional divide between siblings who always looked out for each other. Cinematographer Jaime Ackroyd showcases the unspoilt natural beauty of Scottish locales while sporadic flashbacks glimpse fiery exchanges between young Donal and Sandy and their purse-lipped pa.
Cumming and Cox are gifted and fiercely patriotic actors so, on paper at least, they are snug fits to portray siblings under duress in picturesque surroundings. Unfortunately, screenwriters David Ashton and Jeff Murphy don’t distil their top-tier ingredients into an appealing dram, belabouring each predictable interlude. A tepid romance between Cumming and Henderson catalyses the film’s stand-out scene – a Romeo and Juliet-style exchange from a bedroom window – but the dramatic fireworks come too late. You can hear the unpleasant grinding of the plot’s cogs as the script forcefully manoeuvres characters towards achingly predictable and dewy-eyed declarations of remorse and regret that should allow everyone to say slainte to a brighter future before the end credits roll.
– Sarah Lee
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UK and Irish Cinemas Showing Glenrothan
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