Film review: The Worst Person in the World
Charming romcom about a young woman trying to find her way
The “hermit of Treig”, Ken Smith, has spent 40 years living alone by a loch in the Highlands in a cabin he built himself, said Phuong Le in The Guardian. This “tender” film tells his story, depicting him not as an “eccentric recluse”, but as a “gentle soul with a moving appreciation” for the natural world. Surviving in the wild, miles from the nearest road and with no electricity, turns out to be hard work: Smith catches fish, forages for food and chops his own wood – “no small feat for a man who is now in his 70s”. When he has a health crisis, however, the film’s soundscape of “babbling brooks and rustling trees” is replaced by the whirring of helicopter blades and the focus turns to how much longer he can survive off-grid. Nevertheless, debut director Lizzie MacKenzie’s film is a paean to the “simplicities of life” that feels “especially poignant in our hyper-connected time”.
With his “bright, bird-like eyes, untamed thicket of beard and boots that peel from his feet like banana skins”, Smith was always going to be a “fascinating subject”, said Wendy Ide in The Observer. This “lovely, compassionate” film also reveals that he is a man of genuine talent: a writer, as well as a “glorious” photographer, whose thousands of nature pictures, some of which appear here, throb “with life and love”. MacKenzie spent seven years getting to know Smith before he let her start filming, said Alistair Harkness in The Scotsman, and “that shows in the lovely bond that emerges as she gently draws out his life story, while probing him about the challenges he faces” in the wild. The result is an “illuminating picture of what makes a fulfilling life”.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
The ‘menopause gold rush’Under the Radar Women vulnerable to misinformation and marketing of ‘unregulated’ products
-
Voting Rights Act: SCOTUS’s pivotal decisionFeature A Supreme Court ruling against the Voting Rights Act could allow Republicans to redraw districts and solidify control of the House
-
No Kings rally: What did it achieve?Feature The latest ‘No Kings’ march has become the largest protest in U.S. history
-
Roasted squash and apple soup recipeThe Week Recommends Autumnal soup is full of warming and hearty flavours
-
6 well-crafted log homesFeature Featuring a floor-to-ceiling rock fireplace in Montana and a Tulikivi stove in New York
-
Film reviews: A House of Dynamite, After the Hunt, and It Was Just an AccidentFeature A nuclear missile bears down on a U.S. city, a sexual misconduct allegation rocks an elite university campus, and a victim of government terror pursues vengeance
-
Book reviews: ‘Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife’ and ‘Make Me Commissioner: I Know What’s Wrong With Baseball and How to Fix It’Feature Gertrude Stein’s untold story and Jane Leavy’s playbook on how to save baseball
-
Rachel Ruysch: Nature Into ArtFeature Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, through Dec. 7
-
Music reviews: Olivia Dean, Madi Diaz, and Hannah FrancesFeature “The Art of Loving,” “Fatal Optimist,” and “Nested in Tangles”
-
Gilbert King’s 6 favorite books about the search for justiceFeature The journalist recommends works by Bryan Stevenson, David Grann, and more
-
Ready for the apocalypseFeature As anxiety rises about the state of the world, the ranks of preppers are growing—and changing.