In the cold expanse of the Scottish highlands, in the village of Carrbridge, a strange and quiet ritual unfolds. People gather to determine the apex of porridge making, to award a carved wooden stick—the Golden Spurtle.
A film about this seems, on its surface, to be an offering of simple comfort, a cinematic equivalent of the warm, elemental dish at its center. It presents a world of pleasantness, of endearing human endeavor. Yet, beneath this gentle surface lies the hum of a deeper truth.
We watch not a simple contest, but a fragile human attempt to impose order onto a universe of silent indifference. This annual act becomes a bulwark against the unsaid. The impending departure of its chief organizer, Charlie Miller, is not merely a changing of the guard. It is a quiet tremor, a reminder that all systems, no matter how small or sincerely held, are subject to time’s slow, inevitable erosion. The film documents a last stand.
Vessels of Absurd Devotion
The soul of the contest is not the oats, but the people who have poured their existence into them. We meet Charlie Miller, the retiring chieftain, a man whose laconic exterior guards a life’s meaning found in organizing this yearly rite.
He whittles spurtles to fund the ceremony, carving his purpose into the world piece by piece. The competitors are a gallery of profound fixation. There is Nick Barnard, the health food executive, whose failure to win feels like a metaphysical crisis, a deep existential wound.
From another continent, Toby Wilson arrives with his kitchen packed in a case, a pilgrimage of absurd dedication. Ian Bishop, a former champion, carries the heavy confidence of a man who believes he has mastered one small corner of chaos.
Lisa Williams defends a crown that holds meaning only within this specific cosmos. The camera watches them speak their truths directly to us, framing them not as caricatures, but as stark portraits of existential commitment, people who have chosen to find life’s weight in a grain of oat.
The Confines of Charm
The film’s construction is a study in deliberate limitation. The 4:3 aspect ratio is not a gesture of nostalgia; it is a box. It contains these lives, emphasizing the self-imposed, miniature scale of their grand struggle.
The cinematography places its subjects inside tight frames, peering out of windows or captured against the vast, enduring indifference of the Scottish terrain. A man on a ride-on mower becomes a lonely king surveying his small patch of green. These choices create a visual language of tender entrapment.
The landscape does not participate. It is ancient, vast, and silent, a sublime and terrifying backdrop that shrinks the human drama to its true, infinitesimal size. A playful, bustling score is laid over these images, a curious counterpoint. It is the sound of willful cheerfulness in a quiet, empty room, a melody to keep the silence at bay.
An Arbitrary Center
What, then, is the point of the Golden Spurtle? The film suggests the outcome is almost inconsequential. The viewer is led to believe this is because community and tradition are the real prizes. Perhaps. Or perhaps the result is meaningless because the entire endeavor is a freely chosen fiction.
The community is a shield against solitude. The tradition is a set of actions repeated until they feel sacred. This is not a film about the joy of cooking. It is a profound meditation on how humanity manufactures purpose from the most elemental materials.
Charlie Miller’s retirement punctuates this meditation with a final, quiet truth: all constructed orders will dissolve. The man who was the center of this universe will vanish from it. The film does not leave one with a simple, satisfying warmth. It leaves a question hanging in the chilled air: what do we choose to fill our bowls with, knowing that they will, eventually, be empty?
The Golden Spurtle Premiering in March 2025 at CPH:DOX and later featured at Sydney Film Festival, the film blends humor, tradition, and quiet emotion in a charming portrait of community through porridge-making.
Full Credits
Director: Constantine Costi
Writers: Constantine Costi
Producers and Executive Producers: Rebecca Lamond, John Archer
Cast: Charlie Miller
The Review
The Golden Spurtle
The Golden Spurtle presents a deceptively simple surface. Beneath its cozy charm, it is a stark, quiet, and profound meditation on the human impulse to build worlds of meaning against the void. It watches, with an unnervingly steady gaze, as its subjects find the weight of their existence in a bowl of oats, asking not if they will win, but why they must compete at all. A hauntingly beautiful document of our need for ritual in the face of silence.
PROS
- A philosophically resonant examination of manufactured purpose.
- Stark, beautiful cinematography that captures human fragility.
- Unflinching character portraits that find depth in obsession.
CONS
- Its gentle surface may obscure its unsettling existential core.
- The cheerful tone occasionally creates a dissonance with its deeper implications.
- A meditative pace that demands patient viewing.
