Dir. Gillies MacKinnon, 2002, UK, 96 mins
Cast:
Harry Eden, Vinnie Hunter, Molly Parker, David Wenham, Nitin Chandra Ganatra, Keira Knightley
Eight-year-old Harry Eden gives an inspired performance as Paul in Gillies MacKinnon's latest foray into the underbelly of working class life in the UK today,taking its focus as Paul's awakening at the tender age of ten to the dark and incestuous world of having a junkie mum. Breakfast comes with a different twist in this household. A morning tray of a full English comes with a side order of a syringe full of heroine. Paul's mother played by Canadian actress Molly Parker is concerned not that it's his birthday or his mixing of her drugs for her but that he's made up her special medicine properly for her.
So begins a journey for Paul to come to terms with and understand the full extent of his mothers habit and what his mother is.
The film depicts his journey of discovery to help her get clean, battling against her drug dealer boyfriend Lenny and his henchman Abu. Lenny's aptly played by David (Lord of the Rings) Wenham who gives weight to a character who's violent, vile and yet in his own way cares for the boy and his mother and as with all screen villains he has that likeable charm.
Like the rest of the film everything is hyper real and colourful, loud music blasts out from the soundtrack at every opportunity at times drowning out the story on screen. Whether this is a strength or failing of the film, remains to be seen, but it feels like surface gloss in this story of redemption and family values.
What could have been a deeply moving account of an ever increasingly sad situation for many children of junkie parents becomes forced and contrived. The film seems to drift from one plot device to another to the eventual tearful reconciliation between junk free mother and estranged son, who has just helped police, put Lenny away in jail. Yawn.
I wonder what this film would have become if MacKinnon had stuck to his roots and filmed in the north of England where his previous films Small Faces and Needle were set rather than up-rooting to the unfamiliar ground of Upton Park north London.
The film is entertaining none the less with a second half that's worth staying for and the ever so delightful Keira Knightly pops up as a young junkie waitress looking every bit as gorgeous as she did in Dr Zhivago but with out any of the performance she put in to Bend it Like Beckham. See the film for yourself.
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