Gay romance equals family-farm rejuvenation? Narrative closure in God’s Own Country

Directed by Francis Lee, the 2017 film God’s Own Country links gay romance to family-farm rejuvenation. The narrative sets two aims for its protagonist: John must open up emotionally as well as revitalize his family’s farm. While the film offers closure to the first aim in the form of gay coupledom, it withholds closure to the second aim, failing to imagine the farm’s modernization. However, by the twinning of the two aims, in particular through a similar distribution of character functions, the resolution of the gay romance comes to cover the irresolution of the farm’s revitalization. In this way, the film suggests that, since the British countryside can incorporate a transnational gay couple, somehow the family farm can be revived as well.