Arbor lives on the fringes of society, barely present as his school, drifting in and out of his home, and already embroiled in petty crime before reaching his teens. He has ambitions in scrap which brings him into the sphere of Kitten, a man whose personality is fiercely at odds with his moniker.
Barnard's Ken Loach and Andrea Arnold influences are all too evident. The triumphs are the performances from the child actors, Connor Chapman all raw energy as the feral Arbor, and Shaun Thomas as vulnerable Swifty give genuinely moving performances. Unfortunately, all this takes second stage to an unrelentingly shouty, snarly, foul-mouthed depiction of the underclass. The characters are probably not based on Barnard's lived experience: depressingly, they seem to owe more to the lurid pages of The Daily Mail. Three women appear in the story - Arbor's mother, Swifty's mother and Kitten's wife, and seem to blend into each other in their put-upon world-weariness. The men are similarly indistinguishable in their constant provocations. There is no tenderness, no quiet affection, to break this monotony of misery. This is problematic because when Kitten takes the film's climactic act upon himself, it is a character trait completely inauthentic to everything we have seen of this man beforehand.
Lynne Ramsay in 'Ratcatcher' and Paddy Considine in 'Tyrannosaur' show there is nuanced storytelling to be mined in Broken Britain. This film tries too hard to wear Ken Loach's clothes, but lacks the compassion of a 'Kes'. Disingenuous and unconvincing.
Barnard's Ken Loach and Andrea Arnold influences are all too evident. The triumphs are the performances from the child actors, Connor Chapman all raw energy as the feral Arbor, and Shaun Thomas as vulnerable Swifty give genuinely moving performances. Unfortunately, all this takes second stage to an unrelentingly shouty, snarly, foul-mouthed depiction of the underclass. The characters are probably not based on Barnard's lived experience: depressingly, they seem to owe more to the lurid pages of The Daily Mail. Three women appear in the story - Arbor's mother, Swifty's mother and Kitten's wife, and seem to blend into each other in their put-upon world-weariness. The men are similarly indistinguishable in their constant provocations. There is no tenderness, no quiet affection, to break this monotony of misery. This is problematic because when Kitten takes the film's climactic act upon himself, it is a character trait completely inauthentic to everything we have seen of this man beforehand.
Lynne Ramsay in 'Ratcatcher' and Paddy Considine in 'Tyrannosaur' show there is nuanced storytelling to be mined in Broken Britain. This film tries too hard to wear Ken Loach's clothes, but lacks the compassion of a 'Kes'. Disingenuous and unconvincing.