HEY! Talk about L to B all you want here, spoilers be damned. But This is England was most definitely NOT grandfathered in under your original spoiler alert.
How dare you.
Also, I know what you’re trying to do in that post. I doubt it’s going to work. Fisher.
-xtien
Stephen Graham has already caught the eye of Hollywood, being most recently seen alongside Depp as the crazy one with the tommy gun in the faintly tedious Public Enemies. I expect he won’t be short of work.
I was thinking recently of putting together a short list of films for the forum that best illuminated England as I know it, rather than the mainstream England that is usually packaged for worldwide consumption and ‘This Is England’ would have definitely ranked highly in that list. I’d also probably have included something from the Edgar Wright/Pegg stable (‘Shaun of the Dead’) and something by Mike Leigh, maybe his latest ‘Happy Go Lucky’.
The point being to gather other peoples films that they though best repesented the place they grew up (country or closer) with some justifications. I mean as far as I know maybe America is a non stop parade of ass kicking new york cops heading to vegas for their stag nights. Of course I was later struck by the thought that maybe this was; a) daft idea and b) that I couldn’t think of enough films for the England that I know. So I didn’t make the thread.
Aw, I wish you had done that, Dan. I’d love to see your list. Actually, I think a thead about movies that capture national identities is a great idea. You should start it.
I’d be curious to see if Withnail and I makes your list. It’s got a following much like Big Lebowski among people who think it’s a great comedy, but I’ve always thought of it as a poignant story kind of about England’s descent from the giddy 60s and 70s into the Thatcher era. I’m probably reading too much into it.
-TomI think that is precisely what Withnail & I is about, although the timeframe is I think the come down from the Swinging 60s into the hangover of the 70s rather than necessarily anything about Thatcher and the 80s, which would involve a political angle that is missing.
The poignance of the story most certainly doesn’t stop it being a great comedy though!
‘Then the fucker will rue the day’
Just watched this, after your first post recommendation, Tom.
Cried at the end, watching Kelly walk away. Mostly just thinking about the guilt she must be feeling, I think.
What I particularly liked was the pained expressions on Chum’s face as he got increasingly uncomfortable with what was happening. I was shocked when he got shot. I was expecting/hoping for him to finally take action at the last moment in a mirror of Kelly’s last-minute rescue of Joanne.
I don’t think Kelly has any reason to feel guilty at the end, she saved the girl. I think it’s more that she’s redeemed herself for dragging the girl into it in the first place, HOWEVER that redemption simply means she’s climbed ‘up’ to where she was when she started- on the streets.
To me that’s the sad and scary part, after all she’s gone through she’s lucky to be able to go back to streetwalking. As bad as that is, life could be so much worse for her. It reminds me of Marcellus in Pulp Fiction. He thought he was so badass and was the corruptor, but he discovered a whole other level of depravity in the world didn’t he?
You think the girl was saved? Yes, she’s not dead, but she’s been introduced to prostition and murder by Kelly, and had an experience that is probably going to shape her life for the worse. It’s not like Kelly did something wrong, then made it all better.
The way I see it:
The girl was living on the streets, for at least a couple of days when we met her. You know, and I know, darn well what that means for her future. Yeah, she claimed to be begging for money for that train ticket, but she’s a kid. Any cash she gets is going to cigs and food…then probably drugs as her lot gets worse. In short, she’s on the fast track to be the next Kelly.
Here comes Kelly, with bad intent of course. She’s just trying to make some money at this girl’s expense, hence her need later for redemption. But like it or not, that girl winds up safely with her grandmother at the end because of Kelly. So yeah, Kelly did save her- to that point. What happens to the girl after that is out of Kelly’s hands. The girl has a shot at putting her life together, or heading back out into the streets. Either way, Kelly did what she could.
The one beyond redemption is Derek, not Kelly. He controls her, exploits her after all. Kelly is as much a pawn in all this as Joanne. I don’t think he chose Kelly for this mission randomly, I bet he did it because he knew he could get her to do it. It fits in with how we first meet Derek, manipulating a girl into doing what HE wants.
I realize that in a black and white world Kelly would be the bad guy in this. But that’s part of what makes movies like this interesting, they depict the people living in the gray areas of life. Like the guy Kelly asks for info about where the local hookers work- he’s shocked, not that she wants to work the streets, but that she’d do it looking like that.
Interesting discussion. I think Joanne is both saved and damned. Kelly has restored her to her grandmother, but no telling where it will go from there. I presume her father, who beats her, still has custody. Furthermore, Joanne has just murdered two men. She’s probably lost her childhood.
I’m inclined to agree with roBurky that Kelly is obviously devastated by what she’s done. By the time her and Joanne get to Brighton, Kelly has become the girl’s mother. She has completely made the shift from exploiting Joanne to trying to protect her from a situation she caused.
But I think that’s also her claim to redemption that Mr. Overman is talking about. Terrible things happen to Joanne because of Kelly, but it eventually changes Kelly into a different person. Who, unfortunately, returns to the same circumstances she came from. Seeing her walk into the city and get lost in the background is a pretty powerful cinematic message that a character is lost.
-TomYes, that’s much better put. I suppose Thatcher would be a reaction to what you call the hangover of the 70s. And that certainly captures the sense of Withnail and I.
I’m not really up on the history of England, so to me it jumps straight from the Austin Powers era to the Thatcher era.
-Tom
I’m in the “loved it” camp. So much flavor packed into an hour-and-a-half. Derek and Kelly justifying their plan to pawn a 12 year-old off to a pedo. The moments where the real, child-like Joanne floats up to the top and how Kelly reacts. But I was most impressed by Stuart’s scenes. His Thin White Duke above-it-all disdain. How he completely cows Derek (scum scene). Never a hint of real emotion except when he’s grilling Joanne about what happened during the last moments of his father’s life. And of course his cigarette as Tom has mentioned.
Good stuff. Thanks Tom.
I somehow missed this thread until now. I have added the movie to my queue.
Just finished watching this.
I’m with you on the great performances, Tom, but plotwise, the movie is a bit predictable. Mostly because we know it’s a movie.
So, if prostitutes kill a high powered underworld guy, and the guy’s son uses their pimp to track them down and kill them, then that’s not much of a story. So some combination of the Kelly and Joanne must survive. Given that, and given that there is basically no one else in the movie that gives a shit whether Kelly and Joanne live or die, then the only way that either of them can survive is if the son hated his father and wants to thank them for killing him.
Which is pretty much what happened, except someone had to pay the price, and it was pretty clear who that was going to be as soon as the shovels came out.
So given that this is more of a “How will it play out?” kind of movie rather than a “What’s going to happen?” the performances make or break it. The performances are really good, and probably carry the movie in a number of places that the plot can’t.
I’m gonna have to call you on this. This post is absurd. Mostly because I know it’s a post.
So given that this is more of a “How will it play out?” kind of movie rather than a “What’s going to happen?” the performances make or break it.
I could keep going with the above mini-meme I started, but I think I’ll drop it. You get the idea.
On its face this second quote seemed okay for a minute. It seemed to hold water. Then I thought about all of the other elements of a film that make me love it and I realized that this second quote made no more sense than the first. Yes, if this is a “How will it play out” kind of movie (granting you your premise, of course), then the performances are important. But so is the direction. And the cinematography. And the sound. And the score. And the editing. And the writing. In fact, if this is not a “What’s going to happen film” (again granting you your premise) then all of these other elements become magnified as well.
I grant that the performances are a huge part of this film. But this statement of yours that essentially writes off the other elements makes no sense. A movie is more than simply performances and plot. Just to select something totally out of left field, allow me to cite as an example West Side Story.
-xtien
Really? Because the effort needed to post on a message board is minimal, but the effort needed to make a movie is tremendous. So you have to have a good story that will convince a lot of people to get on board and finance your movie.
Some movies get made on reputation (see: Michael Bay), some on technology (see: Avatar), some on star power (see: Ocean’s X), but a first time writer/director with a cast of unknowns directing a thriller needs a story.
Let me tell you a story that won’t get made into a movie: “Some prositutes run afowl of a crime boss and run away. Their pimp tracks them down, turns them over to the boss’s son, and he kills them. The End.”
Knowing that that movie isn’t going to be made, I can predict that this is a different story. So I’m left with “Prostitute lures girl into bad shit, and sacrifices herself in order to redeem herself” or “Prostitute and girl think they’re going to die, but were never in any real danger. Son wants to tie up loose ends and thank them for putting him in charge of the crime syndicate.”
There are thrillers that are full of twists and turns, and there are thrillers that put people into bad situations and see how they react. All I’m saying is that the story was predictable because there are only two real ways it can go-- Kelly will die saving Joanne, or she won’t and they’ll both be saved (though the last shot was really nice).
I had hopes that Hat Guy from the slacker apartment had something up his sleeve and if this were a Tarantino film, he would’ve and the slacker apartment would’ve turned into a bloodbath, and then Derek would’ve had to deal with that on top of everything else.
Saw it a while back, thought it was a mostly generic and boring movie, trying a little too hard, gritty just for the sake of it. The movie has that touch of “neo film noir” but never gets there, because of a crappy plot and forgettable characters. English cinema is capable of so much better than this, imho.
Good call on Derek. His portrayal is surprisingly sympathetic. That big knot on Kelly’s eye was hard to watch, but good for letting you know you were in a flashback. Lots of good work. I was on the edge of my seat, especially at the end.
Dean, since it was an English independent movie and I haven’t seen many, I wondered if it might be the kind of movie where they just kill the girls. Fortunately, it wasn’t.
Here is the thing about the ending: Why did the son of the gangster insist Joanne pull the trigger? What was that about? Is he just fucking with her mind or is there an intention of adding culpability. If so, why bother? She already knifed Dad.
It’s sort of a grizzly thing to do to a kid, in a movie about grizzly things to do to a kid. I guess it gets points off from me for being a movie about terrorizing kids, with no clearly evil bad guy who gets eaten by a T Rex, like some directors do to adults who terrorize kids in their movies. (although, granted, Dad did get knifed in the… what? crotch, so that’s pretty close to being eaten by a T Rex, but still…)
Exactly. That’s the advantage of watching indie and foreign movies. They don’t play by the same rules.
That’s a good question, Tim. My take on it was that Stuart had a twisted need for some sort of cosmic justice. As the wronged party, Joanna had to be the one to set things right. Also, from a strictly practical standpoint, there might be something there to keep the girls from going to the police. Stuart’s father had been knifed, but by a child he was raping. By involving her in the murder of Derek and Chum, she’s less likely to go to the cops.
And consider how Stuart was punished for smoking. Not by being told not to smoke and having the cigarettes taken away, but by being forced to eat the entire box. Stuart was basically raised on aversion therapy. :)
Of course, from the standpoint of a better narrative, the audience needs to think the girls are being taken there to be killed. But it didn’t feel cheap or manipulative to me.
-Tom
My take was that Stuart always wished that when he was young, he’d had the means or the nerve to take a shotgun to his old man. I think he makes Joanne kill Derek because in his warped mind, he thinks she’ll be better for the experience.
Yeah, that’s some scary stuff to think about, which is probably the mark of good writing. I agree, Tom, that it didn’t feel cheap or manipulative. If anything, what’s so scary is that everyone comes off a little sympathetic.
The gangster’s son doesn’t say “This is for your own good” but I could really see that from him. At any rate, because he doesn’t kill the girls, you can’t help but feel a little for him, but, boy… There is just something satisfying about how everyone’s needs so neatly overlap and propel them to this ending.