Hallam Foe: This Is My Story

Definitely. I even dreamt about him. Jamie Bell's performance as a juvenile peeping tom is one that stays with you, following your subconscious around without permission. Eliciting sympathy one moment and astonishment the next, this teenager reeling from the death of his mother leaves viewers similarly out of kilter. A dramatic thriller funnier than a lot of what passes for comedy, David McKenzie's new feature is beautifully shot in Scotland without wasting a second, the camera lingering like Hallam's binoculars one moment before leaping to the next vantage point. The plot often feels erratic as Hallam rushes around Edinburgh in a haze of paranoia and confusion, but I felt this added to my sympathy for the young crazy, and only a couple of conveniently unfortunate incidents to ratchet up the tempo jarred slightly. A strong soundtrack from Scottish indie heroes Orange Juice and a host of their darker-tinged descendants helped everything along nicely. A strong cast made for compelling viewing, particularly Sophia Myles as the object of Hallam's roving lenses, though for me it was Jamie Bell's impressive turn that made it real. He even overshadowed Spud.

Jamie bell has certainly come a long way from that little dancing boy 'Billy Elliot', although he never seems to get any older, and here he takes another challenging role as Hallam Foe. Hallam is introduced to us as he skylines onto a couple having sex near his tree house, not only is he semi-clad and wearing make-up he is sporting a rather bizarre piece of headgear made out of a badger. It is at this point we the audience can assume that Hallam is not only a bit mad but a bit creepy, which apparently stems from his mothers suicide. From here on in the story sees him leave behind his tree house sanctuary, not by choice, and fly the nest to Edinburgh, he is homeless, jobless and believes his step mother killed his real mother. Armed with his trusty binoculars he scrambles around the roof tops spying on the residents of the city and we learn that he distanced himself from people when he lost his mother and it just turned into a kind of habit, a modern day peeping tom. As opposed to the obsession he had with everyone before he left home, he becomes focused on Kate, a human resources officer for a large hotel, mainly due to the fact that she reminds him of his mother. After conning his way into a job at the hotel he embarks on a relationship with Kate but his spiralling madness, dark secret and Kate's regular sex partner threaten everything and push Hallam further down the spiral. Directed by David Mackenzie it really does have a sense of love for the city and its people, but its Bell and Sophia Myles (Kate), whose strange relationship forms the centre of the film, that carry the plot along. With music from the likes of Orange Juice to Sons and Daughters and an exclusive Franz Ferdinand track the pace is upbeat and the David Shrigley Cartoon titles should be an inclination to the type of quirky film this is. Bold, funny and a little disturbing Hallam Foe is an enjoyable romp through the weird and wonderful world of the human mind and emotions and how certain things can affect our everything.

Mister Foe is another "indie coming of age dramedy" with a hip indie soundtrack about a charismatic teen with psychological problems. Hallam is a film about a boy who misses his dead mother and ends up striking up a relationship with a women who looks like her. Normally films handle the Oedipus complex a little tactfully but Mister Foe goes right for it and pulls no punches. Even after they set it up they go to the well once too often. Each character has a broadly drawn idea of their personality but we never get a sense of who they are. The fact that both of them have such emotional baggage is what is supposed to make it interesting, but they have that baggage because the film says they do. The baggage exists to create the characters and not that characters exist because of the baggage. At the end the character development seems to serve the plot more the the characters themselves. The best parts of this film is the voyeurism angle and even that seems to get lost in the shuffle and even downplayed to other aspects like a weak and unnecessary family drama in addition to a murder mystery that it seems even David Mackenzie tries to downplay and holds off as long as he can. Jamie Bell does give a great performance as Hallam playing a somber yet energetic teenager even if he doesn't have much to work with. David Mackenzie also does a great job of framing the film with some beautiful backdrops and backgrounds. It seems his weakest aspect is filming characters as his character moments are flat and uninteresting with the backgrounds being what gives it flare. Mister Foe is a character study of caricatures. It is fun and odd but at the same time shallow.

Hallam Foe is so self-consciously a left field British Indie, at times it seems close to self-parody. The result is a film that strives hard to be a departure, but spoils its early promise.

The film is about an adolescent, Hallam Foe, in a Scots upper middle-class dysfunctional family (wife recently dead, the husband having replaced her with his young English lover) on a remote Scottish estate. The early scenes are full of an atmosphere of unknown menace and lurid danger, reminiscent of Ian MacEwan's early stories.

Hallam Foe is a very unusual, oedipal adolescent, one of many young screen protagonists that seem to be the spawn of the original fictional teenage weirdo, Holden Caulfield. After a lurid altercation with his father's distinctly dodgy lover, Hallam jumps ship and goes to the big city, where he quickly becomes obsessed with a female stranger who resembles his mother, and struggles with the loss of innocence and tensions of adolescence. But after developing a relationship with the stranger, the film becomes slack and loses interest as the plot becomes tenuous and spins off into improbability.

Still, on the plus side, Hallam Foe is not bad and even quite funny, and has a real sense of place. The cast is good, particularly Jamie Bell and Sophia Myles, both of whom give demanding performances.

Years on from his success in Billy Elliott, it's great to see Jamie Bell being given a vehicle to show that he has the genuine talent to carry a film. Hallam Foe is a fine British production; quirky, disturbing, funny, interesting, thought-provoking and consistently well-shot and soundtracked. At the same time, it's a little gimmicky, heavily-influenced (Trainspotting, Rear Window et al), and frankly far-fetched in its depiction of the unlikely love between Hallam and the object of his affection in Edinburgh (Sophie Myles). But where the disbelief needs suspending,Jamie Bell's performance saves the day, on the emotional side through bringing tremendous depth to his character, and on the physical side by making his rooftop athleticism completely believable. For all its faults, this is a admirable and brave piece of work, well worth-watching if you're after something dark and provocative that will also make you laugh (the badger suit?).