This Is England (2007)

Seen: Thursday, March 20, 2008

This is Raw: Director Shane Meadows' This Is England.

Unfortunately, I wouldn't have seen this movie had it not been brought to my attention on a few 2007 Top Ten lists back in December. The lists made me curious. My American ears had trouble making out the dialogue soaked in 80s British slang, but I adapted quickly enough to follow the story, don't worry. Little Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) is an only child to a single mother in 1980s England, left behind by his father, another casualty in the war in the Falklands. To fill in that fatherly gap he warms to a group of Skinheads who are far too old to be considered his friends, yet obviously too young to serve as any sort of caretaker to the boy either. As these pseudo-friendships blossom the mood shifts awkwardly into something darker: the boy who is friendless and picked-on at school suddenly has a crowd of companions who mold him like a piece of clay into a bona-fide white-power-shouting racist. Uncomfortable enough, yeah? Then come the bloody beatings shown through a jiggly handheld digital lens, which mimic the opening stock footage of people and events current to the news in 1983.

The news sequence during the credits at the start of This Is England is a clever contextualizing device that nicely transitions us into a schoolyard brawl, where we first meet Shaun. It is shot and spliced in much the same way as the credits preceding it. With this style employed, the first third of the film inspired a lot of energy, and sympathy for the poor kid's plight. But soon thereafter that thread was lost. Scenes moved at a longer pace, but without the requisite investment in its characters that make staring at their flaws understandable. Pudgy-faced and lovable Shaun is the emotional core of the story, but by the middle of the film he is muddled in with his larger group of companions; immediately following, our attention is turned to an elder, villainous Skinhead vet, lest we forget the antagonist in this story.

More than any character (besides Shaun, of course) that I longed to hear more about was his mother (Jo Hartley). This woman is in charge. After Shaun's pals dress him in new plain, yet defiantly punky clothes and shave his head, his mother, Cynth, erupts in the teens' hangout to deliver a good tongue-lashing. The best part of it, as rebellious as the teens are, they actually acknowledge her authority. In quieter scenes her face reads of a subtle sadness and helplessness. She's an incredibly delicate figure, but complex, vocal and strong.