This wee quintessential Brit social realist drama shows an agonizing slice of life in three households who live uncomfortably next door to each other in a suburban cul de sac. Archie, a mild-tempered lawyer, is a single dad bringing up his two teenage children Skunk and Jed with the aid of Kasia his Polish Au-Pair who he makes a move on even though she has a boyfriend. Next to them are a quiet older couple who have a grown up son Rick who is a little simple and is easily unhinged. The trio is completed with the Oswald family headed up by a psychopathic bullying father who has a full time job on his hands controlling his three daughters, two of whom are very loose with their ‘favours’ with any local boy who asks.
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When one of the Oswald girls is trying to placate their father during one of his rages, she diverts his anger by saying that Rick had raped her. It results in the innocent boy being beaten and pummelled, police charges bought, and general mayhem that eventually will unravel and change lives dramatically for all the families from now on.
It all develops into a rather frenetic melodrama and a somewhat muddled movie that really isn’t sure what it wants to be. It tries to be funny too and succeeds in part, and at the same time by giving Skunk a cute tough boyfriend called Jed, it is attempting to be cloyingly sweet It is a sadly disappointing mish-mash of a film and so full of far too many working class stereotypes to the point it was almost becoming annoying. The one bright spark of the film was the startling and fresh performance of a remarkably talented Eloise Laurence as Skunk which was a sheer joy to watch.
This debut film by award-winning theater director Rufus Norris was based on a best selling novel of the same name by Daniel Clay. It had the unlikely good fortune for a small budget movie of having two major leading actors in the cast viz Tim Roth and Cillian Murphy. It’s just a pity that their rather insignificant roles hardly used their talents at all.
It’s one of those movies that will pop up in the Film Festival Circuit before it ends straight up in Netflix. So if you have an urge to see it, you probably wont have to wait too long.
