This is England

Okay so last weeks screen This is England was a really nice surprise watch.

The film by Shane Meadows (2006) was a look into British realism such as films from the French new wave 400 Blows. This was very much its British cousin in every sense.

The film itself rotated around a young boy Shaun, not a very much liked boy at his local school. Shaun almost sliding into isolation after his father being killed in the Falklands war is picked up by a local group of children who take him under his wing.
Not at first entirely fitting in at first but eventually becoming as thick as thieves with these bandits of misfits themselves.

All is golden, the band of misfits have their fun by generally doing what they want and going where the wind takes them, until the status quo is suddenly and dramtically changed with the return of Combo played by Stephen Graham.

Things are literally turned on their heads when Combo returns from a prison stretch. He returns with a radical ideology of how Britain is being over run with immigrants and people of colour. The fun loving group are split down the middle as they are forced to question their morals and values as Combo makes them decide what team they are playing for.

Shaun is quilted into banding up with Combo and his group of thugs, he is led down a road that eventually shows him the true volatile nature of Combo and his ideology.

The film was fantastic from start to finish, it was funny, good hearted and also had a very real, very hard hitting under-running plot. It gave enough relief in just the right amounts in just the right places through out the film. Even with the film tackling racism and such we were never taken to far down this bleak road with out the pressure cap being released a few times.

This is a mistake I feel these types of film seem to make and well its a mistake. Yes you are setting out to make a hard hitting film that forces a culture or group of people to view itself in the mirror. Yes you want to raise some very valid points and such but making the audience suffer to much by being too bleak all the time doesn't work. We as an audience are at first effected by this but as soon as it just becomes a situation of and this sounds very harsh but it becomes almost like "I just don't care anymore, this is too much"

What this is England done very well is mix in with its very hard hitting and bleak plot was comical relief moments and light hearted tone. This means when we are faced with characters having to make difficult decisions or a moral value being thrown at you, it works all that more because we are still engaged and connected with the film. Films that are bleak, bleak and more bleakness are just too much to watch. Every time I watch a film like that I can just picture a man with a really big axe cutting the connection with the film and the audience.

Overall I thought the plot was engaging and dare I say it fun at times, every character were real and most of them likeable. The unlikable characters were intentionally unlikeable which really did add a nice dynamic to the piece. It was a surprise to me how much I liked this film. I have to say the title This is England when I heard it the scottish blood in me did begin to boil somewhat. I thought I was going to be hit with English values and such, it never really made a big deal of England, it was more Britain in general. The title did put me off watching it before so maybe a bad title decision...maybe not for me to judge really.