Year of Natural Scotland Local Hero

Local Hero is one of the best loved Scottish films of all time. Conceived by producer David Putnam as a blend of Ealing and Frank Capra – and starring Hollywood legend Burt Lancaster – this comedy about a Texan oil company’s attempt to purchase a remote Scottish community to make way for a refinery marked a huge leap in scale for writer-director Bill Forsyth, following his breakthrough hit Gregory’s Girl in 1980. Thirty years on, it still works as a wry culture-clash comedy, with its narrative resolution where the ruthless outsider falls for the charms of the Scottish village he’s supposed to be buying up.

Forsyth’s gentle pacing and taste for surreal running gags makes this a delight to watch. The director is less concerned with plot than with incidental sketches celebrating the lovable traits of his gallery of dreamers and eccentrics, from Lancaster’s astronomy-obsessed tycoon to Peter Capaldi’s lovelorn linguist and Jenny Seagrove’s web-footed marine biologist. Scotland’s coasts have never looked more romantic.

This screening is showing as part of the Year of Natural Scotland celebrations and the Natural Scotland on Screen film programme that showcases how feature films have represented, imagined and re-imagined Scotland’s natural landscapes and biodiversity. Natural Scotland on Screen is a partnership project between Creative Scotland and Scottish Natural Heritage.