It's Called Love, Son.

Shane Meadows introduced us to Thomas Turgoose in This Is England in 2006, and brought him back for his follow-up Somers Town in 2008. A short feature (IMDb.com calls it 71 minutes, but I'm sure the DVD said 63), it follows young Tomo (Turgoose), who has come to London from the Midlands with no explanation (outside the fact that he doesn't have anything to go back to at home), and his relationship with Polish immigrant Marek (Piotr Jagiello.) 

Tomo has spent his first night in London on the streets after being beaten up and robbed by three older English boys, and is in a cafe when he happens across Marek, who is looking through photos he has taken. They strike up a friendship, spending the day together, and as the day draws to a close Tomo convinces Marek to let him stay with his and his father - though his father is not to know. Tomo hides under the bed, being smuggled food by Marek, and they continue to spend time together, stealing a bag of (mostly) women's clothes, doing some work for a pittance for Marek's neighbour, and fantasising about each of them getting together with French waitress Maria (Elisa Lasowski.) After trying to surprise her with a picnic they discover, to their dismay and collective heartbreak, that she has left, and the two enjoy the wine they have purchased and then much of Marek's father's vodka before Tomo is kicked out. 


It is a very simple story, one of friendship, and one driven by the unlikely charisma of Turgoose. In only a couple of years from his This Is England debut, he has grown leaps and bounds as a performer and carries this story (which, in the hands of lesser performers and filmmakers, could be thought of as weak) almost entirely on his own. Jagiello is suitably stumbling for someone performing in broken English, which I'm assuming is not merely performance, but his role is also much less demanding, and indeed he rarely imbues it with anything more than childlike inquisitiveness and stoicism. 


Apparently the film started as a short, funded by Eurostar, the European rail service known mostly in the UK as a fast link between London and Paris, designed to show up the new Eurostar terminal at St Pancras, where Marek's father works and where their apartment looks over. It grew into the short feature, and I'm glad it did. The story, really, could have been squished into a short, but by stretching it out it allows for the characters to grow, and for you to become involved with them. Similarly, I think another thirty minutes to make it more of a standard feature would have impeded its effectiveness. As it stands, it's a nice way to spend an hour. There are no fireworks, but there aren't really any disappointments, either. 3.5 stars.

313 x Fuck.

The Brits seem to be able to consistently pull off solid realist films more than pretty much any other country. Shane Meadows does it, Andrea Arnold does it, Mike Leigh does it. But probably the longest serving member of this Brit-realist culture is Ken Loach, the master of depression. Loved by Cannes, he’s never been embraced commercially or, really, by awards-givers on the other side of the Atlantic, unlike, for example, Leigh. But for the last twenty years or so he has been putting out powerful films about the lower classes of the United Kingdom, and doing them very well. (I will note that I almost had a heart attack when I saw a poster for Looking For Eric, his latest, earlier this year with the word ‘heart-warming’ on it - what? Ken Loach? Heart-warming? Has the entire world gone mad?)

I’ve seen a few of them, but right now without an internet connection handy all I can think of is The Wind That Shakes The Barley with Cillian Murphy, a grueling but powerful look at the long-running tensions between the Irish and the English. Sweet Sixteen, his 2002 feature that I saw the other day, is set in Scotland this time (he doesn’t discriminate when it comes to which realm of the UK he sets his films in), and is a much more immediate film.

In his debut film role, Martin Compston gives a stunning turn as the fifteen-almost-sixteen year old central character Liam. Kicked out of his grandfather’s home (which he shares with his mother’s lover), he sets about exacting revenge by stealing the drugs hidden out in the kennel of this house, with a view to selling them to purchase a caravan that he and his mother can live in when she is released from prison the day before his sixteenth birthday. This small-scale, initially short-term narcotic crime endeavour quickly escalates after he steps on the turf of a major name in drugs in the town, and he is coerced into joining this drug ring. He proves quite successful, and very quickly the money is rolling in - he has his own apartment, a sharp suit, and everything is going well. He loses his relationship with his best friend, Pinball (William Ruane), but he regains a strong relationship with his sister and her young son. Plus, his mother is about to be released, and that is all he cares to look forward to. When she gets out, no more shall she take drugs, but instead will be able to enjoy the fruits of his labour, selling on to other addicts. 

The world of drugs is never really pretty, but Loach does an incredible job of not showing it as all bad. Well, he shows that Liam does, indeed, get many benefits out of it, and yes, he has to make some hard decisions, but who doesn’t have to if you want to get ahead in any industry? Just because these decisions involve knives doesn’t necessarily make them more morally objectionable. Don’t get me wrong, Loach does not glorify this gangster world. Instead, he shows it as it is. Highs and lows. Ups and downs. Winners and losers. It’s just that the stakes, both to gain and to lose, are higher, and often involve your health, your mobility, or your life.

Central to the effectiveness of the film is that stunning central portrayal by the young Compston. He is pretty much present for the entire film, and his likability despite some of the things he does is what makes the film sing, makes it work. If you weren’t on some level rooting for his success, it would all fall spectacularly to pieces. Barry Ackroyd captures the sparseness and starkness of the town without exploiting poverty, instead giving us the simple way it is. And Loach draws it all out without ever seemingly wasting a word, a shot, a moment. It is a very simple concept, but it is superbly executed. In reality, I think it elevated that world of realism by avoiding the horrible sense of despair that is so often front and centre, and by instead creating a world of hope in unexpected circumstances. Maybe I’ll have to check out Looking For Eric sooner rather than later - it looks like he just may be able to make it work. 4.5 stars.

(By the by, the title of the post is reference to the number of times 'fuck' (or its variations) is apparently said in the film. That seems like a lot. In fact, it would make it about every 20 seconds. And you know what? I didn't really notice it being used excessively. Though, there were numerous points where I couldn't actually really understand what they were saying, due to their accents...)

Where Am I Again?

This Is England is a very personal film, from what I have read. Writer/director Shane Meadows has stated much of what occurs is autobiographical, but you don't need to know this to feel it coming off the screen. The way he plays in flashbacks of news footage of the Falklands War (conflict, whatever) just feels personal. He obviously has a strong tie to the subject matter, like his young subject, Shaun (Thomas Turgoose.)

Shaun is a kid (literally - 12 years old) who lost his father in the War in question. Picked on at school but with a bully's spirit he joins up with some self-styled skinhead punk teenagers who take him under their wing and show him a good time. Whilst they're destructive, these kids (led by Woody (Joe Gilgun)) are pretty nice people. Their destruction is limited to abandoned homes and messing around with each other, and their life-view is to chill out, have fun, smoke some weed and drink some.

When the much-older Combo (Stephen Graham) returns from a few years in prison, where he apparently took the fall for Woody for a crime that never comes to light, the dynamic of the group completely shifts. Combo is a strident nationalist (something that resonates quite strongly with the current rise of the BNP here in Britain) who takes the younger skinhead's mischief to violent and threatening extremes. Shaun chooses staying with Combo rather than Woody and becomes involved in the racism and tragedy it brings. Woody, meanwhile, tries to continue without involvement. In the end, after a nasty confrontation between Combo and one of the original members of the pre-Combo gang, Shaun discovers in himself what England really means to him.

It is a powerful story. Turgoose is extraordinary, carrying the film. Not a bad feat for someone so young. All of the supporting cast is similarly in tune to the requirements of their characters and the mood of the film. Nothing in the film is frivolous: it's all necessary and all treated as such. Meadows (who had been making successful features for a decade before This Is England hit) deftly guides all of the younger performers through the minefields of possible over-performance and lets the older ones let loose with all of the gusto they can manage. He massages the themes of childhood, adolescence and the social and political fallout of wars such as the Falklands (playing out again now in the Middle East) into a moving and powerful narrative with economic expertise.

This Is England is a great film that has grown in my esteem over the two days since I actually watched it. I came out of it impressed but a little nonplussed, but the 48 hours in between have embedded it further in my mind. 4.5 stars, and I'll be looking for some more Meadows flicks to bolster my list.