Hector

It would take a brave soul to mention Peter Mullan and “national treasure” in the same breath. To start with, he’d be more than clear which nation has his allegiance, and then suggest, in the gentlest possible way, that maybe he was, well, a wee bit young for any such honorifics...

So we’ll leave that for another couple of decades, and just salute an actor whose presence on screen is so distinctive, compelling and most of all real. (And hope that we’ll see him back soon in the other capacity in which he has distinguished himself, as a director, with three films, Orphans, The Magdelene Sisters and NEDS, that aren’t easily forgotten for their spiky, raw emotions.) Degrees of anger, frequently accompanied by violence, have become something of Mullan’s trademark: his recent screen outing in Terence Davies’s Sunset Song brought that brew to a terrifying boil, in his role as the devout farmer who’s an almost unimaginably cruel husband and father.

It’s a return to the indie territory which we feel Mullan hasn’t really ever left

Now Mullan’s ushering the year out in a different register, with the central role of a homeless man in Hector. It really is a central role: he’s rarely out of shot, and the camera can’t help but love that face. We don’t learn exactly how old Mullan’s eponymous character is here, but he’s clearly aged beyond his years. The beard’s thicker than usual, but the eyes still sparkle, brilliantly. He’s exposed to the elements for much of the film, and the look comes close to Lear, but Hector’s madness is behind him.

Jake Gavin’s debut stakes a convincing claim to the hallowed ground that's British independent cinema, and would likely have been made on a micro budget if Mullan hadn’t stepped up for the lead: while he may have helped to move Hector slightly up the production scale, it’s certainly hard to imagine anyone matching him in the part. It’s a return to the indie territory which we feel Mullan hasn’t really ever left, despite the slate of roles he’s notched up in much bigger films over the years.

Gavin has said that the inspiration for his script came out of volunteering at Crisis for Christmas, and the stories he heard there, and it’s a London Christmas shelter that’s the setting for the second half of his film. But we first encounter Hector on the road, or rather the roadside, since his wandering life takes him up and down the motorways, and the service stations that offer places to sleep, sometimes inside, more often bedded down in cardboard boxes outside. Our first sight of Hector is when he’s having a morning wash – he could be in a bathroom anywhere, until the camera cuts away to reveal the surroundings. He tries his best to keep himself looking trim wherever he goes.

Hector begins as a road movie, with country-style tracks from Emily Barker giving an appropriate sense of melancholy. It’s a winter journey, with snow on the peaks in the distance, and a distinctly Scottish mood. Hector’s heading for Glasgow, which we presume was his hometown before he stopped having a home. Life on the road’s a lonely one, though the same company crops up from one service station to another: Hector’s recurring companions are Dougie (Laurie Ventry) and Hazel (Natali Gavin), along with Dougie’s dog, the aptly named Braveheart. Hitching the next lift is easier on your own, though: Hector describes the sight of the three of them in a cluster, dressed in new fluorescent jackets they’ve just been given, as like the “three lollypop men of the apocalypse”. That nicely understated humour’s typical of the film, and no one expresses it better than Mullan.

Hector’s clearly in discomfort, supporting himself on a crutch as he pulls a small case behind him, so his immediate destination is a hospital check-up. We don’t hear any diagnosis, but intimations of mortality are felt. From there his journey’s on to London, and the shelter where he has spent past Christmases. We gradually discover that Hector’s also returning to a past from which he’d walked away almost 15 years ago – we’ll learn the reason why in due course. It’s a quiet reveal when it comes, the details best left to speak for themselves: “I fell out wi’ life” is how he describes it, catching in that seemingly casual phrase the ease with which a settled life can be thrown completely off kilter.

That scene of family contact renewed – it’s almost the kernel of a film by Mike Leigh, one of the directors Mullan worked with at the beginning of his career – brings it all home

There are cruelties and misunderstandings along the way, but the sense overall in Hector is of the kindness of strangers, like the lifts he gets along the way from truck drivers and others. The welcome at the shelter is typical, especially from Sara (Sarah Solemani), who’s in charge and with whom Hector has something of a special bond. He’s practically a seasonal fixture there, happy in the company of other regulars: each has a story, about which some speak, while others remain silent.

If strangers are kind, then Hector’s own kin proves less so. When he stops off in Newcastle to try to re-establish contact with his sister, he’s rejected coldly by the latter’s husband, whose world – running a car dealership – could hardly be more different. Down in London a brother, Peter (Ewan Stewart, pictured with Peter Mullan above), himself makes the effort to track Hector down, and that connection is much more real; the distance, anyway, comes at least as much from Hector’s sense of pride. A long, late scene brings family issues back into the foreground, as the sister, Lizzie (Gina McKee), brings home the pain caused on the other side when someone just abandons their previous life.

Though it’s set around, and released just before, Christmas, Hector isn’t a film especially for the season: rather its action just happens to take place around that time of year. That scene of family contact renewed – it’s almost the kernel of a film by Mike Leigh, one of the directors Mullan worked with at the beginning of his career – brings it all home. Jake Gavin has captured the world of his film very nicely, beautifully supported by Barker’s melancholic voice, and tight cinematography from David Raedeker: there’s a long track over beds in the shelter set to carols that surely nods towards Terence Davies, and a beautiful final shot of Hector back at a crossroads in another wilderness. Call me sentimental, but it's four stars for Hector – to salute new talent at the end of a year, and not least for Peter Mullan’s bright eyes, which there’s no resisting.

Overleaf: watch the trailer for Hector