Rating: R | Runtime: 102 minutes
Release Date: September 25th, 2026 (USA)
Studio: Sumerian Pictures
Director(s): Louis Paxton
Writer(s): Louis Paxton

We whether the storms that blow our way.

Daniel (Domhnall Gleeson) isn’t that different from Isla (Gayle Rankin) and Sandy (Grant O’Rourke). And Isla and Sandy aren’t that different from him. Sure, he’s a mainlander privy to current technologies and the concept of variety while their brother and sister duo have spent the past three decades alone on a remote island with nothing but seagulls to eat, but setting doesn’t dictate circumstances. Fear of the unknown is universal.

Writer/director Louis Paxton supplies a wonderful bit of dialogue towards the end of his feature debut The Incomer about “might” and “could.” That so many of us become paralyzed by change because we’re afraid of what might happen instead of choosing the potential of what could. It’s why Isla and Sandy’s father trained them to hate outsiders and why Daniel willfully stands apart. They wield rejection as a weapon. By expecting rejection, he never tries.

It’s therefore an inadvertent gift when Daniel’s boss Roz (Michelle Gomez) orders him to Auke Isle to evict the inhabitants inhabiting its uninhabited island. She’d rather send Callum (Emun Elliott) since she can trust he’ll get the job done, but that trust is due to his irregular and probably illegal methods of doing so. That “ambition” has him sidelined with a suspension, so her hope is that Daniel can handle two holdouts while keeping her promotion on track.

Well, Isla and Sandy take the security of their home very seriously by practicing how they’ll bludgeon and subdue any potential incomers via weapons made of stone and bone while donning hand-made gull costumes. It’s exactly what they do to Daniel upon his arrival. He can barely finish his prepared statement before they knock him unconscious, tie him up, and dangle him over a cliff. He’d leave them be in a heartbeat if only he could get a cell signal for a boat.

What follows is a series of absurdly funny interactions between this outsider and his very particular audience. Sandy hangs on every one Daniel’s words with child-like wonder. Isla meets each syllable with skepticism. It leads to hilarious gags like an introduction to veganism being led by the words “I don’t believe in eating meat.” Sandy is confused about how someone could not believe meat was real. Isla presumes avocados aren’t real since he can’t explain how they grow.

The more time they spend together, however, the more they learn to trust each other’s good intentions regardless of their choices. It helps when a life-or-death situation arises so impulse can assuage trepidation, but there’s also just a genuine interest in who each other is. Daniel finally has the confidence to ask questions of strangers and the siblings finally have an audience who is willing to listen. They’re each able to share fable versions of their lives.

This is where we see just how empathetic Paxton is with his characters. He could have drawn Isla and Sandy as caricatures—the weirdo pariahs that people like Roz dismiss them as without a second thought. But he understands that you don’t become this way in a vacuum. It isn’t something they chose. No, it’s a product of teaching and experience. In other words, abuse and trauma. And the more they tell their tales, the more they begin to realize this truth too.

What occurs in the meantime is still very funny, though. Especially when Callum is sent to save the mission after Roz acknowledges Daniel has failed. Paxton has fun letting Isla and Sandy loose on actual threats to their sovereignty … and even more fun letting Elliott act a fool doing military cosplay. They’re all a bit batty despite their mutual depression and a little sparring gets the blood going to clear minds and confront the harsh reality of their respective unhappiness.

Because Daniel is no different. This is the most alive he’s felt in his life and it’s a stark reminder that his promises of a better existence on the mainland might actually be the lie his new friends thought. He has just as much to learn from their conviction as they do from his acceptance. Maybe his love of fantasy and wizards isn’t something that will turn off every other person in the world. Maybe he simply hadn’t found the right friends yet.

Add John Hannah as a manipulative sea monster constantly attempting to coax Isla into the water and the line separating every silly façade from its deeper emotional truth is thin enough to feel the pain beneath Rankin’s steely resolve, O’Rourke’s sad eyes, and Gleeson’s terror. Paxton hits his themes of isolationism and community with the perfect mix of heart and humor to risk getting you choked up by the climax. Every frame is built on pure humanity.

The Incomer would be a great double-feature selection paired with The Ballad of Wallis Island in that vein. This time it’s one straight man versus two quirky victims of tragedy masking their despair with humor (albeit unintentionally in this case) rather than the other way around. And while Gleeson is wonderful, this is Rankin and O’Rourke’s show. Whether in curiosity or violence, they’re always centering innocence. Their hopes and fears are all driven by love.

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Domhnall Gleeson as “Daniel” in the Comedy, Drama, Fantasy THE INCOMER, from Sumerian Pictures. Photo credit Sumerian Pictures 2026.