Baltimore review – Imogen Poots excels as British aristocrat turned IRA volunteer Rose Dugdale

Irish film-making team Joe Lawlor and Christine Molloy (Helen, Rose Plays Julie) bring their typically agile and unpredictable storytelling approach to the real-life tale of Rose Dugdale (Imogen Poots, excellent), who died last week. A British aristocrat and debutante, Dugdale was born into extreme wealth and privilege – a background she not only renounced but also weaponised when she became an active volunteer in the Irish republican movement in the 1970s. Essentially, it’s a pleasingly taut heist movie – Dugdale masterminded an ambitious art raid on a stately home, intending to barter the stolen paintings for the release of IRA prisoners. But the picture also doubles as a fascinating psychological study of fanaticism, with Poots’s expressive performance unpeeling the layers beneath Dugdale’s fervent belief in her cause.