Wild Rose
It’s time to get on board the Jessie Buckley train. The Irish singer and actress has been in a handful of movies and TV shows, notably the Isle of Jersey-set thriller Beast and supporting roles in the shows Chernobyl and Taboo. Buckley deserves to blow up in a major way with Wild Rose, which is not only her best acting role but also the first real opportunity American audiences have had to hear her sing. She plays Rose-Lynn, an aspiring, gifted country singer who’s stuck in hard-knuckle Glasgow—half a world away from Nashville. She desperately wants to make it, but whoever heard of a Scottish country singer? Rose-Lynn has other problems, too: She’s just finished a year in prison and is tied down by two young children she’s not particularly equipped to raise. With terrific supporting performances by Julie Walters as Rose-Lynn’s long-suffering mother and Sophie Okonedo as an affluent woman who wants to back the singer’s rise to stardom, Wild Rose is nonetheless a showcase for Buckley’s explosive talents. The movie opens with her absolutely nailing Primal Scream’s “Country Girl,” and she only gets better from there.
by Ned Lannamann