Submitted by cinemascope on Tue, 2007-05-01 14:38. :: Cinemascope 5
Movie title:
This Is England
Starring:
Thomas Turgoose, Stephen Graham, Joseph Gilgun, Andrew Shim, Vicky McClure
Directed by:
Shane Meadows
Written by:
Shane Meadows
Genre:
Drama
Year:
2007
Country:
UK
Language:
English
Runtime:
1 hour 40 minutes
Imdb:
Rating:
Synopsis
13 year-old Shaun, small for his age and growing up on a rundown council estate in a northern town in 1983, finds himself increasingly bullied after the death of his father while on active service in the Falklands. Shaun is taken in by a local group of skinheads, motivated by a love of ska, reggae, Ben Sherman shirts and Dr Marten boots, and led by the charismatic Woody. Elated at finally feeling a part of something, Shaun soon has a difficult decision to make when older skin Combo is released from prison, newly politically motivated, and encourages the gang to join him in aligning with the National Front.
13 year-old Shaun, small for his age and growing up on a rundown council estate in a northern town in 1983, finds himself increasingly bullied after the death of his father while on active service in the Falklands. Shaun is taken in by a local group of skinheads, motivated by a love of ska, reggae, Ben Sherman shirts and Dr Marten boots, and led by the charismatic Woody. Elated at finally feeling a part of something, Shaun soon has a difficult decision to make when older skin Combo is released from prison, newly politically motivated, and encourages the gang to join him in aligning with the National Front.
Review
After the chilling masterpiece Dead Man's Shoes, Shane Meadows proves that he is the most exciting British director working today with this stunning follow-up. His first period piece, This Is England brilliantly depicts the fractured, divided society of Thatcher's Britain in the 1980s, while also dealing in the intensely personal - it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the story of 'Shaun Fields' is likely to be a thinly veiled version of Shane Meadows' own story. The struggles of moving into adolescence are explored with warmth and humour, with Meadows and his improvising cast conjuring up some wonderful exhanges of all-too-believable dialogue. At the same time, this is a movie that doesn't shy away from big issues, namely how the right wing exploited the alienation and latent aggression of the skinhead movement to bolster its own numbers. While occasionally the actors appear to be using accents from a broad stretch of the country from Liverpool to Staffordshire to Grimsby, the performances are all excellent, but Thomas Turgoose carries the movie as Shaun, a brilliant, fearless piece of acting from a kid with ADD who failed the auditions for his own school play. This isn't the last we'll see of the fantastic Turgoose. A truly affecting cinematic experience and another exceptionally powerful movie from Shane Meadows, this will be one of the best movies of 2007.
After the chilling masterpiece Dead Man's Shoes, Shane Meadows proves that he is the most exciting British director working today with this stunning follow-up. His first period piece, This Is England brilliantly depicts the fractured, divided society of Thatcher's Britain in the 1980s, while also dealing in the intensely personal - it doesn't take a genius to figure out that the story of 'Shaun Fields' is likely to be a thinly veiled version of Shane Meadows' own story. The struggles of moving into adolescence are explored with warmth and humour, with Meadows and his improvising cast conjuring up some wonderful exhanges of all-too-believable dialogue. At the same time, this is a movie that doesn't shy away from big issues, namely how the right wing exploited the alienation and latent aggression of the skinhead movement to bolster its own numbers. While occasionally the actors appear to be using accents from a broad stretch of the country from Liverpool to Staffordshire to Grimsby, the performances are all excellent, but Thomas Turgoose carries the movie as Shaun, a brilliant, fearless piece of acting from a kid with ADD who failed the auditions for his own school play. This isn't the last we'll see of the fantastic Turgoose. A truly affecting cinematic experience and another exceptionally powerful movie from Shane Meadows, this will be one of the best movies of 2007.
