Hector (15.)
Directed by Jake Gavin.
Starring Peter Mullen, Sara Solemani, Natalie Gavin, Stephen Tompkinson, Gina McKee and Keith Allen. 87 mins
Christmas is supposed to be a time when we think about people less fortunate than ourselves. In reality it is a time when we obsess and seethe over those more fortunate than us, wondering how they came to be so loaded that they can piddle away their money on garish consumer tat and where your life went so wrong that you have to struggle along without an Ipad. Hector is therefore a resolutely old fashioned Christmas tale, a story about somebody who is genuinely worse off than ourselves.
Hector (Mullen) is homeless and has a gamy leg. Every Xmas he hitches down from Glasgow to London to spend the Christmas period in a shelter run by volunteers. This year the festivities are complicated by the knowledge that at the start of the New Year he is going to have an operation, a development that has prompted him to tentatively reach out to his family who he hasn't been in contact with for a decade and half.
Gavin's film is unsentimental but not harsh. This transient life is hard but not entirely bleak, there are moments of contentment and you see how it is something people could get accustomed to it, just another rut a to get stuck in. One of Hector's problems is a tendency to keep thing to himself; Hector the film's chief virtue is a willingness to leave things unsaid. It doesn't whack you with a social message but shows you a life in the margins and trusts you to come to correct conclusions. The film is helped here enormously by Mullen's presence in the central role. His track record proves that if there are harsh truths to be delivered he'll give it to the straight, brutal straight (as in Sunset Song last week.)
It gives humanity and depth to people a lot of us find it easier to deal with in more simplified terms. I'd love to say that film had a positive effect on me but literally a minute after leaving the screening , when a homeless man inquired after some change, I gave my stock, head-down, mumbled sorrymate response as I sped off into the West End night.
Directed by Jake Gavin.
Starring Peter Mullen, Sara Solemani, Natalie Gavin, Stephen Tompkinson, Gina McKee and Keith Allen. 87 mins
Christmas is supposed to be a time when we think about people less fortunate than ourselves. In reality it is a time when we obsess and seethe over those more fortunate than us, wondering how they came to be so loaded that they can piddle away their money on garish consumer tat and where your life went so wrong that you have to struggle along without an Ipad. Hector is therefore a resolutely old fashioned Christmas tale, a story about somebody who is genuinely worse off than ourselves.
Hector (Mullen) is homeless and has a gamy leg. Every Xmas he hitches down from Glasgow to London to spend the Christmas period in a shelter run by volunteers. This year the festivities are complicated by the knowledge that at the start of the New Year he is going to have an operation, a development that has prompted him to tentatively reach out to his family who he hasn't been in contact with for a decade and half.
Gavin's film is unsentimental but not harsh. This transient life is hard but not entirely bleak, there are moments of contentment and you see how it is something people could get accustomed to it, just another rut a to get stuck in. One of Hector's problems is a tendency to keep thing to himself; Hector the film's chief virtue is a willingness to leave things unsaid. It doesn't whack you with a social message but shows you a life in the margins and trusts you to come to correct conclusions. The film is helped here enormously by Mullen's presence in the central role. His track record proves that if there are harsh truths to be delivered he'll give it to the straight, brutal straight (as in Sunset Song last week.)
It gives humanity and depth to people a lot of us find it easier to deal with in more simplified terms. I'd love to say that film had a positive effect on me but literally a minute after leaving the screening , when a homeless man inquired after some change, I gave my stock, head-down, mumbled sorrymate response as I sped off into the West End night.
