Glenrothan

2026 has already proved to be a big year for Scottish cinema, with the release of James McAvoy’s California Schemin’, the story of two Scottish rappers who pretended to be American to help them get a record deal, and Glasgow-based documentary Everybody To Kenmure Street. But while McAvoy was keen to eschew twee stereotypes in his directorial debut, Brian Cox’s first foray into filmmaking could easily be mistaken for a Visit Scotland ad.

Having opened with the first of many montages of admittedly stunning drone footage of the Scottish Highlands, we hear the rumbling baritone of Cox as Sandy, narrating an olive branch of a letter to estranged younger brother Donal (Alan Cumming). After his beloved Chicago dive bar burns down, Donal, along with daughter Amy (Alexandra Shipp) and granddaughter Sasha (Alexandra Wilkie), returns to Glenrothan and his family’s distillery for the first time in decades for an uneasy reconciliation.

As if a Hallmark movie upped its star power.

For those of us who know Cox best as terrifying tycoon Logan Roy in Succession or Hannibal Lecktor in Manhunter, it’s difficult to believe that the same person could have made something so treacly. The talented cast, which also includes a criminally underused Shirley Henderson as the distillery manager and Donal’s spurned first love, are lumbered with awful expositional dialogue, trite truisms and a few weak stabs at humour. The score is syrupy and overbearing, but at least thankfully devoid of bagpipes.

Frustratingly, there’s some untapped potential here for genuine dramatic tension, with flashbacks revealing the brothers’ mistreatment by their father and that it was Sandy, not Donal, who as a young man was desperate to leave Glenrothan and see the world. But ultimately, we’re not in the realm of real human behaviour; it’s as if a Hallmark movie upped its star power and decided to focus on fraternal love for a change.