This is England

A Tremendous Tour De Force, 25 November 2008

Author: gary-444 from United Kingdom


Youth films are notoriously difficult to pull off.When created by the middle aged, they invariably miss the point. When created by peers, they invariably lack perspective. This amounts to a retrospective by a middle aged man, Director Shane Meadows, about his youth.As such it avoids the pitfalls, but benefits from hindsight and maturity.

What sets this apart from so many films is the dialogue and characterisation. Every scene is carefully observed, and every character is carefully drawn so that we care about them. On the one hand we see the journey of the prepubescent Shaun, wonderfully played by Thomas Turgoose from lost soul to a key character in a skinhead group. On the other we see the violent, raging Combo,(Stephen Graham), recently released from prison, with hate in his heart but a tragedy and fragility about him which is equally as compelling.

Meadows loves people, and there is not a wasted scene.Shaun is taken by his mother to buy some new shoes, he is determined that they should be Doc Martens Boots, she is determined that they should be "sensible shoes", and secures the acquiescence of the store assistant to that end. A wonderful vignette, what child did not experience that childhood battle of wills over a pair of shoes?

In barely an hour and forty one minutes, Meadows delivers a searing polemic on the alienation of youth, the desolation of some communities in Thatcherite Britain, the festering breeding ground of racism,and the strength and joys of human inter action in groups.Although violent, foul mouthed and brutal, it is also funny, sharp and melancholic. At times the film almost slips into an elegiac nostalgic mood, before Meadows kicks it on with another sharp scene.

A towering success, and proof that a strong narrative, good characterisation and strong dialogue, do not need a big budget and several writers