‘Effi o Blaenau’ review: Leisa Gwenllian shines in Marc Evans’ somber Welsh-language drama

Dir: Marc Evans. Wales. 2026. 90mins

Marc Evans’ poignant adaptation of Gary Owen’s 2015 one-woman, Welsh language play Iphigenia In Splott rests lightly on the shoulders of rising star Leisa Gwenllian. Her impressive, fully-rounded performance captures the many facets of a young woman confronted by a sea of troubles, and her journey from swaggering invincibility to touching vulnerability.

A state of the nation howl

Following a Glasgow Film Festival premiere, acclaim for Gwenllian should help elevant the profile of a film with affinity with the likes of Daisy-May Cooper’s Lollipop (2024). The tough subject matter and initially abrasive central character may, however, temper theatrical prospects when Effi o Blaenau releases in the UK in June through MetFilm.

Owen’s play loosely adapted Euripides’ Greek tragedy Iphigenia In Aulis to contemporary Wales. Now, Evans (who co-writes the screenplay with Owen) and cinematographer Eira Wyn Jones successfully move the work into a cinematic setting, placing Effi (Gwnellian) in surroundings that are every bit as broken as she is. The depressed slate mining town of Blaenau Ffestiniog seems a grim corner of North Wales. Empty houses lie boarded up, open ground is dotted with abandoned furniture, job prospects seem negligible and glowering mountains dominate the horizon.

The initial stages of Effi o Blaenau seem designed to paint Effi in the most unsympathetic light. Her defiant, oversharing voice-over offers the details of an unvarying life measured in drink, drugs and drama. Her hangovers are “brain-shredding three day bastards”. She displays no empathy for others, and those who seek to help her can expect a mouthful of abuse from someone permanently angry at the world. Evans captures her in social media postings that are all posing and pouting, in deafening nightclubs and bruising encounters. Effi is quickly established as exhausting company, and someone you cannot fail to judge. From there, however, the film gradually allows you to see her as someone more than her circumstances, peeling away that steely veneer to reveal the humanity beneath.

Hope arrives in the form of  Lee, played by Tom Rhys Harries (a former Screen Star Of Tomorrow, soon to be seen in Clayface). Effi spots the injured soldier across a crowded dance floor, and starts to flirt and then trade banter with him. They spend the night together. The chance encounter and her giddy manner as she waits from him to call paints Effi in a very different light. Her one-night stand with Lee changes everything, adding further challenges to a life that already feels like a burden. Her reactions sets up the second half of a drama that increasingly shows her to be at the mercy of a failing sink-or-swim society.

Effi o Bleanau slowly wins your heart, revealing Effi to be stuck in a world that never gives her a chance. How can she thrive in a society where there is no hope, no jobs and basic services are failing the population? An individual story reflects a country in crisis, transforming the film into a state of the nation howl.

Gwenllian may dominate the film, but she is surrounded throughout by a well-cast ensemble with notable work from Owen Alun as her soft-hearted drug dealer boyfriend Kev and Carys Gwillym as her long-suffering grandmother Meg. Together they create a sense of community and connection that ultimately allow Effi to be true to her better nature.