It took some time for me to get accustomed to what “God’s Creatures” attempts to achieve. Subtly shrouded in moody disturbance, this little Irish psychological drama slowly and gradually unnerves us as its ordinary heroine comes to realize something horrible about her son, and, despite its predestined finale, it leaves a considerable impression on us thanks to its good direction and several fine performances.

The story set in a little rural seaside town where Aileen O’Hara (Emily Watson) and many other women earn their living at a local seafood processing factory. As these ladies go through another usual workday, a male body is found in the sea, and it soon turns out that the dead man is the son of a close colleague of Aileen, who apparently got himself drowned while doing some unlicensed fishing.

Not long after the funeral of this unfortunate lad, Aileen’s son Brian (Paul Mescal) suddenly returns to his hometown after several years of absence. Although he did not correspond much with his family while he was supposed to be somewhere in Australia, Aileen is happy to see her son again, and her son seems ready to work hard for earning his living. As a matter of fact, he soon embarks on working on an abandoned oyster farm still belonging to the family, and Aileen is willing to help him via a bit of stealing at her workplace.

However, the movie frequently reminds us of something bad to happen sooner or later. While cinematographer Chayse Irvin constantly fills the screen with a gray sense of anxiety, the score by Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans unsettles us at times via disconcerting percussion sounds, and that makes us more aware of the awkwardness among Aileen and her family members. Aileen still tries to support her son as much as she can, and her son seems grateful to her for that, but we cannot help but sense some distance between them. In case of Aileen’s husband, he often regards his son with reserved suspicion without saying much, and, not so surprisingly, there is a good reason for that.

Meanwhile, we get to know a bit about a young local woman named Sarah (Aisling Franciosi). She recently ends her relationship with her lousy husband, and she receives some sympathy from many other women in the town including Aileen, but she does not know what to do next for her life. As she frankly admits at one point, she has been so accustomed to her little hometown that leaving the hometown looks impossible to her, even though she is quite tired of many things including her husband.

Once its several main characters are fully established during its first half, the screenplay by Shane Crowley, which is based on the story by Crowley and co-writer/producer Fodhla Cronin O’Reilly, eventually sets things in motion via one offscreen incident. I will not go into details here, but I can tell you instead that Aileen is reminded again of how much she has looked away from her son’s very unpleasant nature behind his seemingly likable façade, and this naturally leads to several conflicts along the story. She instantly does what is necessary for her son, but then she cannot possibly ignore the following consequence of her choice, and that makes her all the more conflicted.

While this is surely a familiar genre story, directors Saela Davis and Anna Rose Holmer keep things rolling under the subtly tense atmosphere surrounding the main characters in the film. Not many things are expressed on the surface, whatever is churning among them often feels palpable to us nonetheless, and that is the main reason why the movie still holds us tight even when it finally arrives at the inevitable conclusion.

Emily Watson, who has seldom disappointed us since her haunting Oscar-nominated breakthrough turn in Lars von Trier’s “Breaking the Wave” (1996), is quietly intense as her character desperately tries to hold herself behind her calm and weary appearance. She is particularly wonderful during a key scene later in the story where her character eventually becomes more forthright with her son, and we are not so surprised by her character’s following decision because Watson’s expressive face tells us everything we need to know.

Although the supporting characters of the film are rather underwritten in comparison, two of its main cast members bring more than required to their respective parts. While Paul Mescal, who recently garnered a well-deserved Oscar nomination for Charlotte Wells’ “Aftersun” (2022), ably balances his untrustworthy character between charm and menace, Aisling Franciosi, who previously gave a strong performance in Jennifer Kent’s “The Nightingale” (2018), holds her own small place well as another substantial character in the story, and she is especially heartbreaking when her character sings a folk song in front of others during their little local ritual.

Overall, “God’s Creatures” demands some patience for its slow narrative pacing, but you may find it more engaging than expected because of its good mood and solid acting. To be frank with you, I was not sure whether I liked it or not during the first viewing, but I decided to give it another chance because I was not exactly in a good condition at that time, and I came to appreciate its strong points more during the second viewing. It is still rather modest, but it is better than I thought at first, so I recommend you to give it a chance someday.