Fifty years after Robin Hardy directed the cult horror classic
The Wicker Man, his sons Justin and Dominic discover a cache of their father's long-lost papers, prompting them to reckon with both the film's legacy and the man behind it. For Justin, a filmmaker himself, the film represents deep personal loss; for Dominic, an art historian, it remains a more distant cultural phenomenon. Journeying back to original filming locations and drawing on decades-old correspondence and new interviews with surviving cast and crew, the brothers uncover the truth of Robin's role in creating the film, and the devastation his own obsessive journey left behind among the family he often left behind.
Review:
A deeply personal documentary that finds genuine humanity in its exploration of a complicated, distant father, even where its dual focus on family reckoning and film history doesn't always satisfy both.