I wanted to love this film, I really did, but the acting is just so fake. All of the characters come across as "played", not authentic at all. Every smile, every look, every blink feels planned. If you asked some AI robots to play out a script, it would probably approach the acting in this film.
As I gathered my thoughts on this film, I realized why I felt let down; because it could have been great! I think the concept wasn't inherently bad. As a European, I've seen many films about real and fake European countries that adopt or portray various European cultures and they usually lack an accurate portayal of monarchies, laws, culture, etc. In equal measure. In fact, I think this film's portrayal of Scottish culture is actually not so terrible.
The major letdown in its portrayal of Scotland is the idea that modern rural villages can be owned entirely by a powerful laird who lives in a grand castle and orders the villagers around. It felt pretentious. I think they could've found ways around this. Instead, they relied on an antiquated part of Scottish history which only turns viewers off altogether.
Besides this mistake, much of the culture portrayed is actually done fairly well. The male lead's accent is heavy but not uncommon in certain parts of Scotland and executed quite well. The tartan elements and other cultural references are also fairly accurate.
To summarize, this film is a letdown because its makers let low budget restrictions affect the execution of a concept that had potential. They did not hire actors of adequate quality to carry the film either. As evidenced by other films, inexperienced actors don't have to be bad. Even on a low budget, I think they could've found better actors but simply didn't search hard enough. The cultural references are actually decent, although not all of these traditions are widespread in the more populated parts of the country, but the portrayal of a modern laird poisons the script.
