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”.

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