Director Lynne Ramsay tells it like it is with her second feature.

Christmas is a time for joy and celebration. Or suicide, if you’re Morvern Callar’s boyfriend. He’s lying dead beneath the tree, seen in glimpses as the fairy lights flash on and off. Still, at least he didn’t forget to get his girlfriend a present. It’s his debut novel and it’s on the computer. There’s a tape too, of his favourite songs... And you thought he was selfish.

Morvern Callar is Ramsay’s follow-up to 1999’s dourly beautiful Ratcatcher. Based on Scottish author Alan Warner’s strange nihilistic novel, it stars Samantha Morton as Morvern. “I don’t think she’s an instantly likeable character,” says Ramsay. “I think she’s quite subversive, and what she does is really unconventional.”

That’s one way of putting it. Morvern lets her dead boyfriend rot, buries him in the woods then pretends she’s written the novel. “What she does is emotionally related to her state of shock,” says Ramsay. “There’s something almost semi-autistic in the character that’s really quite beautiful, something almost childlike.” Exactly like the film, then. Jonathan Carter 31 October 02

Morvern Callar, on national release 01 November 02.

collective previews: morvern callar soundtrack