TIFF Report: This Is England Review
UK director Shane Meadows has never been one to shy away from drawing on his own history for his films rooting all of his work thus far in the working class English midlands that are his own roots. But with his latest picture This Is England Meadows takes the autobiographical element of his work to an entirely different level, basing the entire film on his own experiences with the UK skinhead movement of the early eighties. This is England is a masterful film: vibrant, complex, full of life, remarkably unsentimental and unflinchingly honest.
Young Thomas Turgoose stars as Shaun - the Meadows character, a boy who appears to be in his tween years being raised by his single mother as his father is mysteriously absent and sorely missed. An awkward child Shaun is teased and bullied by other children over the usual things - the out of style clothing that is all his mother can provide and his absent father, the latter of which provokes him to violence. Shaun lives a solitary life until he is essentially adopted by Woody, an older teen skinhead, and his small group of friends. Though all signs are that Woody has some sort of darker past this particular group are a happy lot, interracial, and mostly just looking to have a good time while providing the loyalty and support that is otherwise entirely lacking from their lives.
Everything is working well for Shaun until the arrival of Combo, an old friend of Woody's fresh off three years in jail. And if Woody represents the happier face of the skinhead movement, more interested in two tone ska and having a laugh than anything else, then Combo is the grim underbelly, representing all of the negatives that come to mind with the skinhead label. Combo is militantly political and his presence immediately divides the group into those who, like Woody, are simply looking for friendship and support and those who are drawn to the racist element of the movement.
If this were a Hollywood film Shaun would follow Woody and that would be the end of it, but this is based on real life which is seldom so simple. If Woody was a surrogate brother for Shaun then Combo quickly becomes established as a father figure. Shaun simply idolizes the man, drawn by his strength and passion and the strength that he offers. Blind to the dark consequences of Combo's beliefs it isn't long before Shaun is mimicking his every move spray painting racist slogans, attending political rallies and issuing threats to shop keepers. It all leads to a cruel awakening ... This Is England is a coming of age movie like no other. Beyond simply dealing with his own adolescence Shaun must come to terms with mortality, hatred and violence with absolutely no one to guide him through the process.
Meadows is to be commended for his treatment of very difficult source material. He clearly loves the era of the film and has many happy memories of the time, memories which still ring true and clear, while also being rightly appalled at the violent undercurrents. He is one who remembers that the racist element of the skin movement is actually only a relatively small subset of the group and while he certainly does not gloss over the negatives of that element he gives equal time to other aspects of the movement as well: the camaraderie and sense of family that drove it in its high points not to mention the simple fact that outside of the racist subset it was actually an inter-racial movement.
The entire cast of the film is very strong - Meadows has long been known for drawing quality performances out of his actors - but special mention must be given to a pair of actors in particular. The first is Thomas Turgoose, the young actor who portrays Shaun and gives the film its heart. Turgoose is a first time performer being given difficult, complex and demanding material and he proves remarkably up to the challenge of capturing the spirit of the times despite not having been alive during them. Meadows apparently re-worked the character to allow Turgoose to bring some of his own experiences to the mix, essentially making Shaun an amalgam of Turgoose and himself, and that investment pays off with an entirely believable performance. The second face that deserves high praise is Stephen Graham as Combo. Best known for his part as Tommy in Snatch this is without a doubt the finest performance of Graham's career and the sort that should place him in very high demand. Combo is the sort of character that would be deathly easy to reduce to a cartoon, the simply minded violently racist thug. And he is those things but he is much more as well and Graham easily takes on the complicated psychology of this man. He is a menacing physical presence, a man desperate to be proven strong, fiercely loyal to his friends, as truly protective and caring for Shaun as he can be, and at points apalled at his own capacity for violence. If there is any justice out there Graham's performance should be career making and well recognized come awards season.
Meadows is a film maker who, thus far, has been unfairly limited by his own strengths, by the uncanny specificity of his work. "He's too English," goes the common argument, "so people in the US won't be able to relate." Well, it says here that argument is garbage. With very few exceptions specificity is a key to great film making, the road to the honesty and truthfulness in one specific situation that will allow audiences around the world to latch on and make that truth their own. Working in generalities, on the other hand, simply turns everything to pointless mush. This Is England is smart, funny, charming and appalling. It again proves that Meadows, already much loved for A Room For Romeo Brass and Dead Man's Shoes, is one of the truly powerful and unique voices in UK film today, a master of character with an uncanny gift for fusing nostalgia with harsh reality. Very strongly recommended.
