Dennis Hartley writes reviews of “Eastern Promises” and “This Is England” over at Hullabaloo. I saw the latter about a month ago and it was well worth the money.
See the trailer for “This Is England”, which, if I’m correct, is still available for cable users with IFC On Demand (they release movies that are being shown in limited theaters available for rent through your cable box):
Dennis writes:
A hard-hitting, naturalistic “social drama” reminiscent of the work of Ken Loach and British “angry young man” films of the early 60s (with a slight whiff of “A Clockwork Orange”) “This is England” is set against the backdrop of the Thatcher era, circa 1983. The story (reported to be loosely auto-biographical, based on the director’s Midlands upbringing) centers around a glum, alienated 12 year-old named Shaun (first-time film actor Thomas Turgoose, in an extraordinary performance) who can’t seem to fit in with any of the cliques at his school. Shaun presents a real handful to his loving but somewhat exasperated mother (Jo Hartley), a working-class Falklands War widow who does her best to support herself and her son. After a particularly bad day of being bullied about by teachers and schoolmates, happenstance leads Shaun into the midst of a skinhead gang.
Shaun’s initial apprehension is quickly washed away when the sympathetic and good-natured gang leader Woody (Joe Gilgun) takes him under his wing and offers him an unconditional entrée into their little club… The idyll is soon shattered, however, when the gang’s original leader, Combo (Stephen Graham) is released from prison. Combo’s return causes a rift that divides the gang; his jailhouse conversion to racist National Front ideals doesn’t settle well with Woody and his supporters, and they break off on their own. Shaun decides to stay on after forming an instant bond with the thuggish Combo, who easily parlays the impressionable Shaun’s grief over his father into a blame-shifting hatred of immigrants, with tragic results.
Dennis covers the strength of the performances, but it bears repeating: for a little indie flick the cast performances and cinematography were fantastic. Loved the soundtrack. Some of the story lines take some suspension of disbelief, namely that a worried widow mother wouldn’t have greater issues with her young son taking up with a significantly older fringe group of teenagers, and skinheads at that. But as I commented at Hullaballoo, the most unsettling thing for me and Chef when we watched it was how similar some of our experiences growing up in Indiana were to those in the movie — screwing around, breaking things, causing trouble, trouble that would eventually lead to real trouble. That said, I thought the director/writer was a little forgiving with the scenes involving the younger skinheads and exactly what skinhead culture was, and if his goal was to posit them as merely punk and/or rude boy enthusiasts (pre-SHARPs, if you will) in contrast with the National Front skinheads we’re more familiar with, that’s one thing, but regardless how much I loved the movie I thought the treatment of the beginning scenes with the younger skinhead group was a tad pastoral.
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On a slightly related note, Chef read Bill Buford’s “Among the Thugs” while we traveled and from what pieces I read I also highly recommend it. Buford follows European football enthusiasts around and explores their culture of violence, xenophobia, and outright racism, some of which includes involvement with the National Front. It’s next on my reading list.
wow, you are a seemingly inexhaustible font of cultural knowledge – who knew i was going to come here today and find a well-informed taxonomy of skinhead subculture? you ever used to write articles for maximum rock and roll?
I so loved This is England, though it was hard to watch in places. Perhaps Woody’s crew was a little precious, but I think that he got the casual violence part right. This was an autobiographical picture for the director/writer, after all; he lived through the cultural transition from rude boys to National Front skins in England. And can we talk about the skin ladies in the crew? I totally forgot how unbelievably hot and tuff they were. The whole thing made me want to dig out my poseur Doc Martens and troll around the internets for this history of SHARPs and ARA skins. Precious little out there.