Adrift in Soho

Confession : This film lost me within the first two minutes due to my own personal dislike of highly stylised imagery in movies. Still, I wanted to like it and tried to give it a fair chance. It IS set in 50s Soho, after all - a place I know well, although long after its 50s & 60s heyday - and it purports to be something of a philosophical exploration of the intellectual and cultural scene there at the time. Surely there would be something there to win me over?

Nope. Firstly, the outdoor scenes look like... well... anywhere but Soho. Secondly, it fails almost completely to evoke the 1950s. There's no attempt to conjure up the atmosphere of time or place. Thirdly, erm... who are the characters again? Thirty minutes in and we barely know who they are or if we're supposed to like/hate/admire them, or even just find their dialogue interesting. It would be unfair to put that down to bad acting - it's more a result of bad writing and directing. The director knows what he's trying to create, but completely fails to communicate it to the audience.

Thirty five minutes in, and I'm reduced to fast-forwarding just to get the ordeal over with. I'm not familiar with the novel - it's probably vastly more interesting than this, and one day I might give it a try. If you've read it then you may get more out of the film than I was able to, but for anyone coming to it 'cold' then it's just uninteresting, self-indulgent, inept drivel.

Review by Rodney Wilson.

I have to say, this film came as a pleasant surprise. I didn't know the director and my expectations were low! The film is based on my brother Colin's novel and he hasn't been too successful in adaptations of his work -he would have envied Grahame Green if he hadn't hated his work so much!- Colin's Space Vampires or Lifeforce were lamentable.

Now the 1960s Adrift in Soho is possibly my favorite book of Colin, so my prime concern was to see whether the film had done justice to the book.

Half-an-hour into the film, I decided to forget Colin's book. And when the character James was killed off, I had completely forgotten the book! I was convinced by then the film had an independent life to the book on which it was based. I was so enthralled by the photography -the out-of-focus '50s footage opening sequence is inspired- that I made up my mind to enjoy the film in its own right, and that came easily.

The camera shot of a first-edition of The Outsider in a Soho bookshop is all I needed to appreciate the connection to Colin. I consider myself a "film buff" but shamefully I confess to no knowledge of the Free Cinema film movement that had inspired the director. But it didn't matter.

The film evokes 1950s Soho as atmospherically as anyone could have wished, and the eccentric Soho types didn't disappoint. Colin's book explores the nature of freedom, and to that extent the film was true to the book, as well as following the storyline to a recognizable extent. I felt the film was a valiant effort to capture an era that is now gone, and gone for good. That is no mean achievement. I thank the director for the experience, and shall follow his career with an interest I certainly didn't have before I saw the film. Well done. Rodney Wilson.

This film is a clumsy, ugly adaptation of a beautiful, vivacious book. The story and characters, Soho circa late 1950's, are infinitely cinematic on the page of Colin Wilson's book yet paradoxically this film is devoid of any discernible atmosphere and the story is delivered with absolutely no performance value, the cast are possibly the most inept ensemble ever seen. The cause of Free Cinema is hitched to the narrative, it seems the director misconstrues this as a license to make a bad film, which is exactly what this sprawling, inarticulate mess is.

An adaptation of Colin Wilson's 1961 novel, following the lives of a group of intriguing characters, some real, some not, as they strive to discover the true nature of freedom. This atmospheric movie, set in London's Soho in 1959, is also a homage to the 1950s Free Cinema movement in which then up-and-coming moviemakers like Lindsay Anderson, Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson, Claude Goretta and others took their Bolex cameras out onto the streets, and into the cellars, of post-war London filming what they saw. Depicting some of the major events of the time, like the first CND march to Aldermaston, this mesmerizing mosaic of a film rewards multiple viewings. Highly recommended.

This film contains some great performances from most of the cast. It also displays some great cinematography. There sales a few clunky moments throughout but overall it is very poignant. Bravo all