Clio Barnard returns to Directors’ Fortnight after The Selfish Giant and Ali & Ava with an adaptation of Keiran Goddard’s novel I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning. The director, whose Yorkshire upbringing is a site of belonging, has set her work in Northern England—Bradford specifically—but, honoring Goddard’s novel, places this film in post-industrial Birmingham.
I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning achieves something very few films of its kind can: introducing and sustaining a group protagonist while paying the necessary attention to the individuals who form it. As in the novel, we focus on friends who grew up together but something prevents them from growing apart, still meeting in their old haunts more than a decade since the council estate they lived on had been demolished. Of the five, Rian (Joe Cole) is the one whose social mobility earned him a banker job and swanky London apartment, while Oli (Jay Lycurgo), Conor (Daryl McCormack), and couple Patrick (Anthony Boyle) and Shiv (Lola Petticrew) remained. To adapt Goddard’s book, Barnard teams up with Enda Walsh, whose work on some of the most evocative screen adaptations of late—such as Small Things Like These and Die My Love—makes him a perfect fit to transform the monologue form of I See Buildings into a polyphony of voices and presences.
We begin in medias res at a birthday party, itself the reunion of a friend group where every character is painted both distinctly and as part of a whole. Conor is going to be a dad; Shiv’s daughter is painting Rian’s nails and asking about the price of his jacket. Techno music is a balm for Oli, right until he leaves the dancefloor to get high in the bathroom. Yet for a small amount of time, they are really together. The past that binds them is made present in that scene, where images of the party are intercut with a site of destruction—the council estate of their shared childhood, Lee Bank (Green Tower) in Birmingham. Beyond time and space, togetherness is I See Buildings‘ central premise and its form reflects the narrative—splitting the screentime between all five protagonists is then edited together as simultaneous events, like a carousel of character portraits (each with their routines, tasks, and feelings) painted against suburban backdrops.
Throughout, Simon Tindall’s camera remains close to each and every player, holding them in tight close-ups and following with the (handheld) vigor of a keen participant. That closeness, though, underscores the tension and aura of the characters who are less articulate about their feelings. Silence and repressed emotions are part and parcel of British identity and manifest differently in working-class contexts; thus the cinematographer’s role becomes one of bridging the distance, gentle and rewarding to behold. Allowing the viewer to not only encounter but actually study the characters’ faces is a generous gesture that, in turn, makes the handful of moments where one looks directly at the camera feel like shared recognition. To call I See Buildings‘ aesthetics “subtle” is too perfunctory; the film form interacts with and unearths what’s left unsaid in a respectful but quietly radical way.
Critics have praised Goddard’s novel for its dynamic narrative approach that swaps clear plots for character tableaux and interior monologues. In Barnard’s film, dialogue moves the plot forward; even sequences of solitude and silence sit between those of encounter and exchange. More than simply keeping the multiplicity of voices intact, Barnard and her collaborators manage to move freely between the written word and audiovisual medium. It’s worth noting, however, that multiple perspectives don’t equal multiple subjective points of view—an effort that levels the film, making sure its audience feels included instead of simply observing specimens under a microscope.
This synergy of cast, script, and aesthetics makes I See Buildings immensely captivating—not only as a story of lifelong friendships, but a commentary on urban developments and housing as a universal right. “Home is a privilege,” says Patrick in a climactic monologue he delivers to a drunken Rian out of growing frustration. He speaks of belonging to a generation duped by the unfulfilled promise of capitalism and the communist ideals of a bygone era in an eloquent, non-didactic way. It’s a point that’s very dear to the novel and British politics, but for once, such a dense speech doesn’t serve the function of exposition; it’s not intended for the audience as much as it is the character who needs to articulate it, to say it back to himself. Film worlds that are as self-contained as they are open and inviting are few and far between, and the kinds, once again, conjured by Clio Barnard.
I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning premiered at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival.
The post Cannes Review: I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning Is a Captivating, Polyphonous Ode to Friendship first appeared on The Film Stage.
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