‘The Incomer’ Is a Quirky Delight

Were one inclined to remove the word “quirk” from reviews of Louis Paxton’s “The Incomer,” one would end up with a spate of clippings resembling Swiss cheese. Not that the Q-word isn’t applicable to Mr. Paxton’s debut. It does, after all, mix-and-match forebears like “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Brontë, Robin Hardy’s “The Wicker Man” (1973) and Yorgos Lanthimos’s “Dogtooth” (2009). Oh, and Alfred Hitchcock’s avian meditation on the intransigence of both mothers and nature, “The Birds” (1963).Hitchcock comes up as a cultural reference during “The Incomer.” The name is used for a pair of puns based on its syllables: The first pertaining to a snag in the proceedings, the second as a sideways phallic joke. There are also birds, lots of birds in Mr. Paxton’s comedy, and the oddest of the bunch are Isla (Gayle Rankin) and younger brother, Sandy (Grant O’Rourke). They have spent the better part of thirty years as the sole occupants of a remote Scottish isle. As such, they’ve taken on some curious customs.Among them are defensive exercises intended to subjugate anyone daring to tread on their domain; these include pummeling an effigy that has the word “incomer” scrawled upon it. They also occasionally dress in tribal gear patterned on the gulls peppering the island. These routines were instilled by their father after mom disappeared from the island under mysterious circumstances. Dad has long since passed away, so Isla and Sandy have to content themselves with each other’s company. Isla does, admittedly, go down to the shoreline to converse with a finman, a mythical creature portrayed by John Hannah.According to legend, the finfolk swim in the waters of the Orkney Islands. The women of the species are out to snatch human husbands to cater to their every need while the men enjoy collecting silver and fishermen’s wives. The critter we encounter in “The Incomer,” a duplicitous mix of a merman and a sea lion, is less interested in Isla as a companion than as a full course meal. Though our heroine’s toe comes close to testing the waters, she proves level-headed. Isla has to attend to Sandy: He’s a good-hearted man-child in need of supervision, a simpleton without a mean bone in his ample frame.Enter Daniel (Domhnall Gleeson), a meek and geeky clerk at the Northeastern Scottish Council land recovery unit. His imperious boss, Roz (a deliciously officious Michelle Gomez), sends him to evict Isla and Sandy from their unnamed island. Within a few minutes of arriving, Daniel is conked on the head with an expertly thrown stone and taken prisoner by our brother-and-sister team. Daniel manages to impress his captors, sort of, by using his cell-phone as a musical backdrop for what he presents as feats of wizardry. Mostly, though, Isla and Sandy are won over by Daniel’s stories of bureaucratic serfdom, gob-smacking adventures heavily cribbed from J.R.R. Tolkien.“The Incomer” is, yes, quirky, but it sidesteps the cutesy, the coy and the twee by maintaining an even-handed, matter-of-fact grounding. Even as the story takes on some silly byways and predictable turns it is powered by Mr. Paxton’s faith in the inherent decency of its main characters and, not least, a deft way with a gag. He’s enabled by actors with significant comic chops and the know-how not to give away the game. There’s a love story here and a moral espoused, with animated snippets that are in keeping with the droll ambiance of a brilliant entertainment. Enjoy.

‘The Incomer’ Is a Quirky Delight

‘The Incomer’ Is a Quirky Delight

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