TORONTO, Canada—A spiritual companion piece to The Banshees of Inisherin that features another riveting performance from Barry Keoghan, Bring Them Down is an edgy small-scale tale that reverberates with epic tensions.

The story of a warring pair in the countryside whose livestock squabble boils over into violence, Christopher Andrews’ directorial debut—which premiered Sept. 8 at the Toronto International Film Festival—is a rugged and ragged affair whose suspense comes not only from its escalating-stakes action but from its charged performances and severe formal proximity to its protagonists. Taut and mournful, it’s a lament for the mistakes made in anger, the wounds that fail to heal, and the past that never truly seems to be past at all.

In an unspecified rural patch of Ireland, Michael (Christopher Abbott) manages the family’s flock of sheep and rams now that his father Ray (Colm Meaney) is disabled and largely confined to the chair in front of his archaic computer.

Returning home one evening, Michael discovers that their gate is busted, after which Ray hands him the full bottle of urine that he uses to relieve himself. Things are broken and dysfunctional in this quiet outpost, and that situation is exacerbated by a call that Ray receives from neighboring sheep farmer Gary (Paul Ready), who tells him that they found two of Michael’s rams dead on the hill. Upon visiting Gary’s place, Michael runs into former flame Caroline (Nora-Jane Noone) and her twentysomething son Jack (Keoghan), the latter of........

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