Two For Joy (15.)
Directed by Tom Beard.
Starring Samantha Morton, Billie Piper, Emilia Jones, Badger Skelton, Bella Ramsey and Daniel May. 86 mins.
40 years ago a man sang about there being no future in England's dreaming. True enough, but its nightmares sure have longevity. As custodians of our nation's hallowed cinematic traditions of social drearlism, the BFI can always be relied upon to chip in for a film or two a year about underclass misery; a look at how the other half barely exist.
Writer/ director Beard's approach is to throw the kitchen sink at it. His scenario is spectacularly grim. Morton plays a widow so clinically depressed she can barely make it out of bed. Her youngest son Troy is a little tempest, running wild while sensible teenage daughter (Jones) tries to hold things together and learn French in the hope that that might offer a way out. By mistake, they go on holiday to their caravan by the sea, and then things get really bleak, in the way only English seaside holidays can be.
We could accuse the film of being parodically bleak, a black comedy (it does have one authentic laugh, when a feral child, faced with a barbeque supper screams at her mother “Where are the chips, where are the chips, I always have chips,”) but I think we'd be kidding ourselves. It's joyless but it never really feels forced. If anything it's underwrought. The scenes of Morton and Jones talking on a sofa at home are so quiet you can barely make out what they are saying. Beard and his cameraman Tim Sidell conjure up some striking images: it's realism but doesn't rub your face in it. Happiness and beauty surround them, but they're all too wrapped up in their misery to see it. There is hope in it, though probably not for any of the people in it.
The script gives its characters real humanity. The acting ensemble is top notch. The grown-ups all convince but is the kids that excel. Ramsey's makes Miranda, the hyperactively obnoxious kid that befriends Troy at the seaside, vividly objectionable. As Troy, Badger Skelton (possibly not a stage name) gives the little scrote an aching vulnerability, a wonder at the world going on outside the rut he is stuck in.
Directed by Tom Beard.
Starring Samantha Morton, Billie Piper, Emilia Jones, Badger Skelton, Bella Ramsey and Daniel May. 86 mins.
40 years ago a man sang about there being no future in England's dreaming. True enough, but its nightmares sure have longevity. As custodians of our nation's hallowed cinematic traditions of social drearlism, the BFI can always be relied upon to chip in for a film or two a year about underclass misery; a look at how the other half barely exist.
Writer/ director Beard's approach is to throw the kitchen sink at it. His scenario is spectacularly grim. Morton plays a widow so clinically depressed she can barely make it out of bed. Her youngest son Troy is a little tempest, running wild while sensible teenage daughter (Jones) tries to hold things together and learn French in the hope that that might offer a way out. By mistake, they go on holiday to their caravan by the sea, and then things get really bleak, in the way only English seaside holidays can be.
We could accuse the film of being parodically bleak, a black comedy (it does have one authentic laugh, when a feral child, faced with a barbeque supper screams at her mother “Where are the chips, where are the chips, I always have chips,”) but I think we'd be kidding ourselves. It's joyless but it never really feels forced. If anything it's underwrought. The scenes of Morton and Jones talking on a sofa at home are so quiet you can barely make out what they are saying. Beard and his cameraman Tim Sidell conjure up some striking images: it's realism but doesn't rub your face in it. Happiness and beauty surround them, but they're all too wrapped up in their misery to see it. There is hope in it, though probably not for any of the people in it.
The script gives its characters real humanity. The acting ensemble is top notch. The grown-ups all convince but is the kids that excel. Ramsey's makes Miranda, the hyperactively obnoxious kid that befriends Troy at the seaside, vividly objectionable. As Troy, Badger Skelton (possibly not a stage name) gives the little scrote an aching vulnerability, a wonder at the world going on outside the rut he is stuck in.
