''Wild Rose'' is a 2018 British musical drama film directed by Tom Harper and starring

Jessie Buckley Jessie Buckley (born 28 December 1989) is an Irish actress and singer. The recipient of a Laurence Olivier Award, in addition to nominations for an Academy Award and three BAFTA Awards, she was listed at number 38 on ''The Irish Times'' list of ...

Julie Walters Dame Julia Mary Walters (born 22 February 1950), known professionally as Julie Walters, is an English actress. She is the recipient of four British Academy Television Awards, two British Academy Film Awards, two International Emmy Awards, a ...

Sophie Okonedo Sophie Okonedo (born 11 August 1968) is a British actress and narrator. The recipient of a Tony Award, she has been nominated for an Academy Award, three BAFTA Television Awards, a Golden Globe Award, and a Primetime Emmy Award. She began her f ...

Jamie Sives Jamie Sives ( ; born 14 August 1973) is a Scottish actor. Sives was born in Lochend, Edinburgh. He studied at Leith Academy and worked as a scaffolder, as a postman, and as a club doorman in Edinburgh before turning to acting full-time. In 2 ...

Craig Parkinson Craig Parkinson (born 11 March 1976) is an English actor and podcaster. He is perhaps best known for his roles as Shaun in the E4 series ''Misfits'', twins Jimmy and Johnny Kray in the ITV series ''Whitechapel'', and DI Matthew "Dot" Cottan in ...

, James Harkness,

Janey Godley Janey Godley (born Jane Godley Currie, January 1961) is a Scottish stand-up comedian, actress and writer from Glasgow. Early life Jane Godley is the youngest of four children born to Annie and Jim Currie. She was raised on Kenmore Street in S ...

, Daisy Littlefield, Ryan Kerr, Adam Mitchell, and Nicole Kerr. The screenplay was written by Nicole Taylor. The film had its world premiere at the

Toronto International Film Festival The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF, often stylized as tiff) is one of the largest publicly attended film festivals in the world, attracting over 480,000 people annually. Since its founding in 1976, TIFF has grown to become a permane ...

on 8 September 2018 and was released on 12 April 2019, by

Entertainment One Entertainment One Ltd., trading as eOne, is an American-owned Canadian multinational entertainment company. Based in Toronto, Ontario, the company is primarily involved in the acquisition, distribution, and production of films and television se ...

in the United Kingdom. The film received positive reviews, with Buckley earning a nomination for the

BAFTA Award for Best Actress in a Leading Role Best Actress in a Leading Role is a British Academy Film Award presented annually by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding leading performance in a film. * From 1952 to ...

for her performance.

Plot

Rose-Lynn Harlan, aspiring country singer and single mother of two from

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

, is released after a year in prison for attempted drug smuggling after throwing a package of

heroin Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a potent opioid mainly used as a recreational drug for its euphoric effects. Medical grade diamorphine is used as a pure hydrochloride salt. Various white and brow ...

over the wall into

HM Prison Cornton Vale Cornton Vale is a women's prison in Stirling, operated by the Scottish Prison Service. Built in 1975, Cornton Vale comprises a total of 217 cells in its 5 houses. It accepted solely convicted women and girls from 1975 until 1978. In 1978 Parliam ...

despite claiming that she did not know what was in the package. She has lost her longstanding job in the house band at Glasgow's Grand Ole Opry, as the manager won't employ a convicted criminal. Rose-Lynn's mother, Marion, who has been caring for Rose-Lynn's young children, encourages her to give up her music dream to focus on a steady job and taking care of her children. Rose-Lynn takes a cleaning job at Susannah's large house. Susannah's children overhear Rose-Lynn singing while she is cleaning and tell their mother. Rose-Lynn asks Susannah for money to travel to

Nashville Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...

to try to make it as a musician, but she declines. Instead, she contacts

BBC Radio BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927). The service provides national radio stations covering th ...

presenter, Bob Harris, sending him a recording of Rose-Lynn singing; he offers to meet with her if she comes to London. Rose-Lynn appears before a judge to ask him to lift her

probation Probation in criminal law is a period of supervision over an offender, ordered by the court often in lieu of incarceration. In some jurisdictions, the term ''probation'' applies only to community sentences (alternatives to incarceration), such ...

ary 7pm to 7am curfew so she can travel, and he agrees. She travels by train to London, and sits in on a live performance by the visiting

Ashley McBryde Ashley McBryde (born July 29, 1983) is an American country music singer–songwriter. Raised in Arkansas, she was drawn to various types of music from a young age. She also developed a passion for writing songs and later moved to Nashville, Tennes ...

. Harris encourages her to keep performing and figure out what she has to say so she can start writing her own songs. Susannah offers Rose-Lynn a performing gig at her upcoming house party, where she intends to ask her guests to contribute to Rose-Lynn's Nashville fund in lieu of gifts. Rose-Lynn asks Marion to watch the children in the week leading up to the party so she can rehearse, but Marion declines to cancel her holiday plans, so she is forced to shuttle her children around to various friends, who agree to watch them. The day before the performance, Susannah's husband gets Rose-Lynn alone and tells her he knows about her criminal conviction and she is to stop working for them after her performance. Rose-Lynn's son breaks his arm while briefly left unattended at home, and the doctors at the hospital say they cannot put a cast on until after Rose-Lynn's planned performance. Marion arrives to help and Rose-Lynn begs her to stay and watch her son so she can get to the party; Marion agrees but criticises her strongly for neglecting her family. Rose-Lynn rushes to the performance but, once on stage, breaks down immediately. She confesses to Susannah her guilt for her criminal behaviour and not being there for her children, and her belief that her conviction and having children at a young age are permanent barriers to her musical dream, then leaves. Rose-Lynn gets a job as a waitress and dedicates herself to her children. Some time later, Marion, seeing that Rose-Lynn has accepted her responsibilities, presents her with a large sum of money she has saved, enough to travel to Nashville. Rose-Lynn tries to reject it, but Marion expresses her regret about failing to accomplish her goals due to having children. Rose-Lynn travels to Nashville and finds how difficult it is to find gigs and get noticed. She sneaks on stage at the

Ryman Auditorium Ryman Auditorium (also known as Grand Ole Opry House and Union Gospel Tabernacle) is a 2,362-seat live-performance venue located at 116 Rep. John Lewis Way North, in Nashville, Tennessee. It is best known as the home of the ''Grand Ole Opry'' fr ...

during a backstage tour and sings an impromptu song to the empty building. A security guard approaches her afterward, offering to introduce her to a record producer, but Rose-Lynn decides to return to Glasgow, having realised that her future lies in her home town. One year later, Rose-Lynn performs an original song at

Celtic Connections The Celtic Connections festival started in 1994 in Glasgow, Scotland, and has since been held every January. Featuring over 300 concerts, ceilidhs, talks, free events, late night sessions and workshops, the festival focuses on the roots of tra ...

titled “Glasgow (No Place Like Home)”, receiving raucous applause. Bob Harris, Susannah and her children are in the audience.

Cast

The film also features cameo appearances from

Kacey Musgraves Kacey Lee Musgraves (born August 21, 1988) is an American country singer. She has won six Grammy Awards, seven Country Music Association Awards, and three Academy of Country Music Awards. Musgraves self-released three solo albums and one as Texa ...

and Bob Harris.

Release

The film had its world premiere at the

on 8 September 2018. Shortly after,

NEON Neon is a chemical element with the symbol Ne and atomic number 10. It is a noble gas. Neon is a colorless, odorless, inert monatomic gas under standard conditions, with about two-thirds the density of air. It was discovered (along with krypton ...

acquired

distribution Distribution may refer to: Mathematics *Distribution (mathematics), generalized functions used to formulate solutions of partial differential equations * Probability distribution, the probability of a particular value or value range of a vari ...

rights to the film. It screened at the

BFI London Film Festival The BFI London Film Festival is an annual film festival founded in 1957 and held in the United Kingdom, running for two weeks in October with co-operation from the British Film Institute. It screens more than 300 films, documentaries and shor ...

on 15 October 2018 and at

South by Southwest South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in m ...

in March 2019. It was released in the United Kingdom on 12 April 2019, by

and in the United States on 21 June 2019 by

Soundtrack

Reception

''Wild Rose'' received positive reviews from film critics. It has approval from critic reviews on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, with an average of . The site's consensus reads: "There's no shortage of star-is-born stories, but ''Wild Rose'' proves they can still be thoroughly entertaining -- and marks its own transcendent moment for lead Jessie Buckley."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

reports a score of 80/100, based on 32 critics, indicating "Generally favorable reviews".

Accolades

Notes

References

External links

* * * * * {{Tom Harper 2018 films 2010s musical drama films British musical drama films Films about singers Films about music and musicians Films directed by Tom Harper Films set in Scotland Films set in Glasgow Entertainment One films Film4 Productions films Neon (distributor) films 2018 independent films 2018 drama films 2010s English-language films 2010s British films Films shot in Glasgow