Our fearless leader Brandon texted me several days ago with a screenshot of an upcoming February 2026 Criterion line-up entitled “Yearning,” advertised as featuring The Deep Blue Sea, Merchant-Ivory production Maurice, Martin Scorsese’s The Age of Innocence, Wong Kar-Wai’s In the Mood for Love, God’s Own Country, “and more” (which includes All That Heaven Allows). He jokingly asked if I had been moonlighting as the programmer for this series, given my love for The Age of Innocence (discussed here), Mood (as discussed here), and films about yearning in general. I am very much myself, as only the night before, I watched God’s Own Country for the first time, completely coincidentally. 

Johnny (Josh O’Connor) is a reluctant shepherd, living on an isolated farm and forced into growing responsibilities there by his hard father Martin’s recent stroke. Martin’s mother Deirdre also lives in the farmhouse and shares Martin’s low opinion of her grandson. For his part, the depressed Johnny fills his nights with raging alcoholism and finds no solace in the anonymous sexual encounters he has with other men when he manages to get off of the farm long enough to cruise. To help out for part of the calving season, Martin hires an itinerant laborer named Gheorghe (Alec Secăreanu), and he and Johnny immediately come into conflict, with Johnny using racial slurs to attack Gheorghe’s Romanian heritage. When the two are sent out to repair a fence on a distant part of the property, they begin to bond once Johnny witnesses Gheorghe’s more tender approach to farm work, although they eventually end up in a physical altercation that immediately turns into sexual release for both of them. Gheorghe’s influence on Johnny makes him a better person, but when Johnny starts to fantasize about a future together, Gheorghe’s reluctance prompts Johnny to engage in behavior that has the potential to sabotage their burgeoning love. Their situation is further complicated by Martin’s second stroke, which leaves him completely unable to manage the farm. 

I remember a fair amount of buzz around this one when it first arrived on the scene, although I don’t hear it discussed much anymore despite O’Connor’s rise to onscreen prominence in recent years. Perhaps it’s because he’s not a very likeable person in this film, and people might find him hard to relate to. We can identify with his resentment of his former peers for being able to move on with their lives and go to college while he’s stuck, seemingly permanently, doing manual labor that he’s not suited for. On the other hand, it’s hard to extend much empathy toward him when he’s hurling racial epithets or railing a random stranger in the pub bathroom while Gheorghe waits for him. That his journey is one of a white Briton whose harsh ways of viewing life are softened by the attentions of a loving “exotic stranger” makes the story a little iffy, and it seems like Gheorghe is way too good for Johnny from the outset. 

I did like the way that Gheorghe’s farm techniques are contrasted with Martin’s and how that carries over into their different relationships with Johnny and what those interactions cultivate within him. Martin insists that Johnny put down a calf that experienced breech birth rather than let his son take the animal to a veterinarian who might save it, and this hardness is apparent in the way that his son longs for his approval and the affection that a single, gentle touch would show. In contrast, Gheorghe saves the life of a seemingly stillborn sheep and then nurses it back to health; when they find another lamb that has died, Gheorghe skins it and places its hide on the runt so that the ewe will let it nurse. Johnny bears witness to this gentleness and, when it’s extended to him, it changes him for the better. About halfway through this film, you’ll start to wonder if this is going to be one of those queer films with a happy ending or a sad one. I won’t spoil that for you; this one is worth the journey to find out for yourself. It’s a quiet, slow, beautiful movie that’s perfect for a long, cold weekend sheltering against the latest winter weather threat.

-Mark “Boomer” Redmond