‘I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning’ Review: Clio Barnard’s Compelling Portrait of Working-Class Love and Disappointment

Adapted from Keiran Goddard’s novel, Clio Barnard’s ensemble drama about five friends from Birmingham is rooted in astutely observed emotional truths.

Some films herald the scope of their ambitions from the opening frame, whereas others start humbly with a mastery that slowly comes to the fore. It’s hard to identify when the emotional circuit board underlying “I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning” switches on and a low-key multi-character yarn coheres into a humanist light show, only that after that certain point it achieves the enduring power of a folk ballad.

This is an ensemble character drama both behind and in front of the camera. Screenwriter Enda Walsh (“Hunger”, “Small Things Like These”, “Die, My Love”) has loyally adapted Keiran Goddard’s 2014 source novel, and director Clio Barnard elicits potent performances from her quintet of rising Irish and English stars. 

Ever since her debut “The Arbor” (2010) Barnard has built a reputation for embodying her socially conscious themes within the methods of filmmaking itself. She collaborates with the working-class communities where she sets her stories, involving locals in the production process and putting them on screen as background artists. “I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning” is consistent with this process. It is a departure in that it showcases the most vivid characters she has ever brought to the screen, a testament to their strong literary origins. Five working-class friends from Birmingham are drawn with such empathic curiosity that Conor (Daryl McCormack), Patrick (Anthony Boyle), Shiv (Lola Petticrew), Oli (Jay Lycurgo) and Rian (Joe Cole) all but follow you home after the film. 

These five friends grew up together as children on the same council estate, and now – just like that – it is Oli’s 30th birthday and no dreams have come true. Barnard bookends the film with club scenes, powered by euphoric bonhomie and perhaps a few Class As. Even so, friendship is more powerful than narcotics. There is a loving shorthand built of a lifelong familiarity, which makes the viewer want the best for them, just as they want that for each other.

Even from the start, flickers of restiveness appear. especially felt in the characterization of Conor. McCormack broke out as a dreamboat sex worker opposite Emma Thompson in “Good Luck To You, Leo Grande”. Here, he works against his piercing-eyed romantic charisma to embody a self-destructive hothead wrestling with violence that wants to come out. His mates watch over Conor, taking turns to intervene when his anger threatens to flare up in word or deed.

Conor is expecting a baby with his partner, Sophie, so he pitches a potentially lucrative construction project to the only one of them with money. Rian has “gotten out” in the conservative financial sense. He moved to London and made it rich thanks to his gift for buying and selling you name it, however his inability to communicate is a barrier against true intimacy and Rian is a lonely island in his glass tower in Canary Wharf.  

Meanwhile, childhood sweethearts Patrick and Shiv are married with children. She has made a conscious choice to be a homemaker, finding its rhythms preferable to a poorly paid grind. Patrick models this latter pursuit by furiously cycling through the streets to deliver food on a bicycle. They are a loving couple. Still, they move through the days at different speeds, as the demands of survival keep them apart. Everyone is worried about Oli whose income comes from drug dealing, plus he has a tendency to get high on his own supply. His trajectory is altered by an encounter with the child of an addict. Rarely seen without his small dog Lola, Oli feels like a lost puppy himself.

The first act is busy with information about the fivesome and their orbits, so it takes awhile for the material to breathe.There is a significant amount of character lore and backstory to establish, much of it flirting with archetypes.  Even during this fairly breakneck section, there is something special in the non-verbal ways the characters show care. The looks, the deeds, the loyalty and even the anger. 

This is a film steeped in class-consciousness with the hyper-articulate Patrick serving double duty as an oracle. A speech to Rian citing “the death of a certain way of thinking that housing was a social good” feels like a manifesto directly addressed to a UK audience. With the exception of this on-the-nose, late-era-Loachian dialogue, this is a subtle film, with a scene-by-scene emphasis on creating psychological depth and social texture. Shooting in the real homes, clubs and neighborhoods that birthed these characters strips away distracting artifice, allowing the slowburn emotional stakes to take over. By spending time with each of them as they navigate their separate days, we learn what each is privately dealing with, away from the game face they present to each other. 

Goddard — who also serves as an executive producer — has stated “We feel more than we know and we know more than we can say” and this turmoil has been translated to the performances, each filled with internal calculations. This is not a quiet film yet the silences are sculpted to contain forces that shape the characters beyond their capacity to express. In its marrow, this film understands that our slow drift into isolation can only be arrested if we can make an imperfect swing at saying the unsayable.  

Barnard skillfully establishes the weight of shared history before focusing on a present-day status quo full of whirring parts. Conor, Rian, Shiv, Patrick and Oli are striving to do better than their parents even as disappointment calcifies in the air around them. Tension arises from the fear that they are racing against despair and the stakes are high because the immersive character work compels you to hope that they will triumph. 

Largely told in a dour naturalistic visual language, Barnard switches things up for one a classically beautiful image of lights shimmering on water. One character gazes out and tries to make a decision. This striking shift aligns with the scene’s significance. It represents the filmmaker’s romantic gift to a character who has gone to a place where his friends can’t reach him. This film is a heartfelt swing at making no place unreachable, wherever you come from. 

Grade: B+

“I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning” premiered at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.

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