Recluse (1981)

Based around real events, this follows a few hours in the lives of an elderly trio of siblings who have managed their family farm all their lives, but who are now having to face some economic realities that are going to result in changes none of them want, but that one of them is more determined to resist. It falls to the sister (Ann Tirard) to tread on eggshells trying to appease her brother “Charlie” (Maurice Denham) and the increasingly disgruntled “Alec” (Derek Smith). As the former pair leave the latter man at home alone so they can look at potential new houses, “Alec” takes the time to look around their outbuildings and reminisce about his own youth, his girlfriend and their overbearing father. When it really comes down to it, do any of them really want the change? What can they do instead? Go on a cruise? This is speculative, but in many ways it rings true as a plausible analysis of how generations of tradition were eroded by technology and mechanisation rendering hitherto productive lifestyles unaffordable and redundant. Even the most stoic and solid of people were faced with life changing scenarios at a time in their lives when they were least equipped to deal with profound change, and with very little dialogue all three characters here manage to convey that sense of helplessness and, even, hopelessness. Might it really have happened? I thought perhaps there was a glitch in the postulation at the end, but give it half an hour and see what you think.