A fiery Glaswegian singer and single mother dreams of Nashville glory in this gritty feelgood feature, Sun 14 Apr 2019 08.00 BST Screenwriter Nicole Taylor (who wrote the BBC miniseries Three Girls) takes this punchy mantra and tattoos it on the arm of her heroine, an ex-con single mum, living in Glasgow but dreaming of Nashville. And while the multitalented Buckley – who first made her name as a competitor on the BBC’s 2008 musical contest I’d Do Anything – is evidently at home fronting a powerhouse country band (featuring musical talents such as Neill MacColl, Aly Bain and Phil Cunningham), it’s a moment of a cappella intimacy that strikes the deepest chord, enabling this wild rose to take root in our hearts.

Directed by Tom Harper. With Jessie Buckley, Matt Costello, Jane Patterson, Lesley Hart. “It’s like a suppository for the emotionally constipated!”.

Jessie Buckley, who proved so electrifying in Michael Pearce’s psychological thriller Beast, lights up the screen as Rose-Lynn Harlan; a 23-year-old firebrand, fresh out of jail, wearing an electronic tag beneath white cowgirl boots. Last modified on Sun 20 Sep 2020 16.47 BST. Sun 14 …

Affectingly directed by Tom Harper, with whom Buckley previously worked on TV’s War and Peace, Wild Rose combines the infectious, musically driven Brit-pic energy of Billy Elliot with the Americana grit of Crazy Heart or even Coal Miner’s Daughter. “I should have been born in America,” insists the indomitable Rose-Lynn, as she cuts an unruly swath through pubs, clubs and prison bars, reminding us that “Johnny Cash was a convicted criminal”. It’s a lovely performance by Walters, made all the more powerful by its understatement. That sense of music giving voice to conflicts that might otherwise simply scream in silence is at the heart of Taylor’s script. Brilliantly, she manages simultaneously to convey both boisterous confidence and searing self-doubt, rooting her character’s chin-forward recklessness in an underlying sense of confusion about her purpose and destiny. Photograph: Entone Group. As Marion, Julie Walters is at once scolding and protective, determined to get her daughter back on track with her family, yet fiercely aware of the dreams that remain uncrushed. All rights reserved. Plaudits, too, to the supporting players, who create a convincing network of warring allegiances among which Buckley pinballs with aplomb. © 2020 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. “There’s a reason country is really popular in Scotland,” Taylor told me when I interviewed her at the BFI Southbank recently. With Betsy Berenson, Maya Brattkus, Deanne Bray, Courtney Jones. Enter Sophie Okonedo’s well-heeled Susannah, whose dissatisfaction with her own privileged life is assuaged when she spies raw talent in her new “daily” woman. It’s a challenge to which Okonedo rises nimbly, framing Susannah’s sometimes clumsy interventions within the context of her own tangible frustrations. Despite the apparent disjunction between the rowdy stages of Rose-Lynn’s Glaswegian life and the hallowed halls of Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium (home of the Grand Ole Opry), Taylor finds transatlantic common ground between the grass-roots struggles that lie deep in the heart of this music, wherever it is played. In 1952 Rose Miller returns to her rural hometown of Beresford, South Dakota to care for her ailing mother. But beyond such bravado, it’s the power of music to pierce the heart that is the focus of this uplifting, bittersweet film, painting a picture of hardscrabble lives lent lyrical voice by the magic of country. It’s an idea that is embodied by Buckley, whose performance reaches out from the screen and grabs the audience by the throat. Mark Kermode @KermodeMovie. But Rose-Lynn hasn’t t old her wide-eyed employer that she’s not quite the free spirit she seems – that she has family responsibilities tying her to Glasgow, rather than to London or Nashville. A troubled young Glaswegian woman dreams of becoming a Nashville country star. ‘A performance that grabs the audience by the throat’: Jessie Buckley in Wild Rose.