For his directorial debut, Brian Cox is painting in pretty broad strokes and primary colours; Glenrothan is a sentimental comedy-drama from screenwriter David Ashton about the troubled reunion of two brothers in Scotland. It can be a bit soppy, sometimes resembling Sunday-night TV comfort food, but this big-hearted picture wins you over, and there are certainly some marvellous panoramic shots of the Highlands.
Cox himself plays Sandy, the glowering chief of a hugely profitable family-owned distillery which provides employment for the entire locality, and run by the fiercely competent Jess (Shirley Henderson). Sandy effectively inherited the job from his late father, a stern disciplinarian remembered in traumatised flashback scenes – for this role, Brian Cox has drolly cast his son Alan Cox.
In poor health, Sandy sends a grumpy yet pitiable letter to his long estranged younger brother Donal (Alan Cumming) asking him to come back for a visit. Donal is living in Chicago and running a blues bar with his daughter Amy (Alexandra Shipp); Donal was once the tearaway rebel who quarrelled ferociously with their father about the old man’s cruelty to their mum, left their village as a young man and swore never to return; this left Sandy to deal with the fallout, and broke the heart of Jess, who was then his girlfriend. But that blues bar of his is in trouble and Donal considers the time ripe to make this sentimental journey back to Scotland with Amy and his granddaughter Sasha (Alexandra Wilkie).
As for Sandy himself, he always knew that Donal was actually the greater connoisseur of whisky, and with a better nose for it; Sandy has to consider what will become of the family business, so it’s a matter of … yes … succession. Inevitably, the whisky magnate will be compared to the media magnate Cox played in Jesse Armstrong’s HBO smash, though this is much gentler. There are some nice moments: Sandy’s disgust at the terrible porridge Donal tries to make, and Donal’s astonished discovery on re-entering the family home that his old bedroom has been kept exactly as it was when he left, Buzzcocks posters and all.
• Glenrothan is in UK cinemas from 17 April; from 25 June in Australia
