Local Hero (1983)
Based on a recommendation by my aunt, I tried to watch this movie a long time ago and didn't make it past the first 20 minutes. I rented it again this week and kept watching and my aunt was right, it's a really wonderful film.
MacIntyre (called Mac and played by Peter Riegert) works for Houston-based Knox Oil. When Knox wants to acquire an entire town on the Scottish coast for a refinery, Mac is sent to negotiate with them by Knox's eccentric owner Mr. Happer (Burt Lancaster). Mac's primary qualifications for this job are based on the belief that he's Scottish (he's not). Arriving in Scotland, he meets Danny Oldsen (Peter Capaldi), an actual Scottish Knox employee, and the two set out for the town of Ferness. Once there, they find the locals very eager to sell their property for the money, but as both Danny and Mac slowly fall in love with the town, they begin to have doubts about their mission.
Local Hero is kind of like an 80s version of I Know Where I'm Going! where an outsider discovers what's important by spending time in a Scottish village. Only this time, the locals aren't all paragons and it's the outsider who realizes what they have before they do. It's a film very much rooted in a sense of place, and the importance of place. By the time Mac has spent a few days in Ferness, he's become completely taken with both the sea and the sky - two things he never noticed before. It's really fun to watch him clamor around the beach, like a kid, collecting shells. By the time the movie ends, I felt like Mac does, that I never wanted to leave Scotland. But since every movie has to end, at least the ending is beautiful and it instills the need to feel connected to somewhere.