Dir.
Gaby Dellal, UK, 2005, 99 mins
Cast:
Peter Mullan, Brenda Blethyn, Jamie Sives, Billy Boyd
A reworking of "Full Monty" territory with a Scottish accent this time, being about a man, who is made redundant and regains his self respect by taking his clothes off. But in the case of Frank ( Peter Mullan), he does it in an attempt to swim the channel.
After 35 years working in a Clydeside shipyard, Frank finds himself at 55 without a job or any hope of getting one. Unlike his son Rob (Jamie Sives), who has cheerfully adapted to unemployment by becoming a full time father and house husband, Frank sinks into deep depression, haunted by memories of his other son Stuart, Rob's twin brother, who drowned when he was seven years old. The only bright spot on his horizon is his trips to the local swimming baths with his mates, amongst whom he is much the strongest swimmer. When one of them Danny (Billy Boyd) jokes that on a clear day he could swim to France, Frank takes him seriously and starts training for the ultimate endurance test, which also leads eventually to reconciliation with Rob, with whom he's fallen out.
The redemption and reconciliation themes are well worn territory and the film has very little original to say about them. But where it does score is in the characters and the actors who play them. The opening scenes dealing with the humiliation of redundancy are very well done, as in a sequence where Frank goes to register as unemployed and finds the clerk he's dealing with is his daughter-in-law (Jodhi May), who's now the breadwinner for his son and grandson. Mulllan is consistently strong throughout, as is the ever reliable Brenda Blethyn as his wife, who is secretly training to be a bus driver but daren't tell her husband, for fear of further denting his self esteem. Frank's mates, who help him with his training, are well drawn, particularly Benedict Wong as Chan, the normally silent Chinese chip shop owner, who both finds his voice with a delightful Scottish accent and learns to assert himself, while Boyd, as the chirpy Danny, adds some welcome humour with his wisecracks. As far as the swimming sequences are concerned, while Frank's training sessions are convincing, I find the actual cross channel attempt itself less so. It all seems a bit slap happy and undermanned for an official attempt at the record books. More importantly the schism between Frank and Rob over the death of Rob's sibling is never properly explained. We are told about it as a fact, but the emotional motivation is unclear, which makes the final reconciliation between them fall flat and feel artificial. Despite the predictability of its story line however, the film is still well worth seeing for the performances.
Carol Allen
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