A Little Learning Is A Dangerous Thing

Impressionistic and immersive from the start, Dominic Curran’s big screen feature début, which recently screened as part of the 2026 Belfast Film Festival, confronts modern life as a car crash. It’s literal in the first instance, with Michael (Ryan Dylan) left slumped in the road following a hit and run. His journey back to a normal life is slow and painstaking despite his father’s efforts to provide the support he needs, but it’s really when he strikes out on his own again that things begin to go calamitously wrong.

We see the two of them together in the park with two very cute family dogs whose enthusiasm and eagerness to explore makes Michael’s stillness all the more striking. The one thing he does express is concern at the state of the adjacent lough, which his dad notes supplies most of Northern Ireland’s drinking water. When, subsequently, his boss sacks him in a video call, his growing sense of the injustice of the world, combined with additional free time, leads him to obsess over that lough, doing a deep dive into YouTube and similar sites which he mistakes for meaningful research. It’s the start of a fixation that will lead him to very dark places.

Michael doesn’t separate himself completely from society. Sure, he finds a little basement flat, probably illegal to let, in which to secrete himself and indulge his online habit, but he does get another job, working as a carer for elderly people, which he enjoys. This helps to balance the pace of the film, with slower sequences of real conversation breaking up the rapid-fire montages of his online viewing. Nevertheless, there will be moments when viewers feel overwhelmed by the latter, and it’s clear that he does. There is always a limit to his conversations, a line beyond which he will not go. Gradually people who were close to him begin to recognise this and move away.

There are a number of films out there now about online religious indoctrination and the spread of misogyny online. Curran is subtler. Most people will find it easy to empathise with the basic principles driving Michael. Nobody likes pollution. It’s easy to be frustrated by hypocrisy or by people who talk a big game but do nothing. Michael wants to make the world better. He just doesn’t extend the same sympathy to the people in it. His anger and intolerance drive away the very people who might otherwise be allies. Worse, he doesn’t understand the world the way he thinks he does. He has no real research skills. He simply believes what he’s told, but because it contradicts things he’s previously understood to be true, he fails to grasp that.

How much is his brain injury contributing to this? Might there be another underlying mental health issue? Curran never forces any particular conclusions, but his visual techniques become more and more disorientating, with patches of bright colour beginning to spread across the screen towards the end, hinting at how confusing Michael’s mental picture of the world has become. It’s a daring approach for a first feature, trusting the audience to come along on this difficult journey with a character whom they, too, may struggle to like, but Dylan is good and the tension gradually escalates as it becomes clear that Michael is planning to turn his concerns into decisive action.

A great example of how to build a thriller on a small budget whilst saying something that matters, this is well worth catching if you get the chance.

Reviewed on: 08 Nov 2026