Somers Town

The English press have perhaps been a bit too kind to this film because I came to it with lots of glowing and very positive reviews in my ears. This is understandable given the way it was made and, more importantly, that it was made by British director Shane Meadows, in yet another different entry in his resume. Following the success of This is England, Meadows has come south for a small story about a minor friendship between two young men who finds themselves in need of one another to some extent. Tomo has left Nottingham and found himself with nowhere to go in London and is robbed his first night in town. Marek is an immigrant who lives in a basic flat with his father but spends the majority of his time alone. The two meet in a café where Marek is fixated on the pretty French waitress and, after initial conflict, a uneasy friendship develops.

The film is comparatively quite short but accordingly it is also a very slight affair, with a very basic plot in place that is secondary to the general air of the film and the exploration of the world they find themselves in. I can understand why this would put many off because for the majority of the film (if not all the film) it can feel like "nothing" is happening – mainly because it isn't. The film relies a lot on the feel of it and our interest in the two boys and I think it almost relies on this too much without giving us a lot of reason to care narrative-wise. That said though, the easy chemistry that develops between the two boys is quite affecting and their relative naivety and desire for a woman out of their reach does ring true as part of a growing up process. The fact that the bigger picture of these two lives is largely left in the background is a bit of a problem but then it is hard to see how all that could have been brought in with the budget and time constraints.

Meadows directs the film well though and should be commended for staying in smaller British films that he wants to make. The hand-held style here takes a minute to get used to but with his camera and his script he is kind to the characters – not blind to who they are but not judgemental visually or thematically. He gets very good performances as well. Turgoose doesn't quite impress as he did when he had stronger material but his is still an affecting turn. Better though is Jagiello, who is wonderfully shy and interesting as a delivered character. Lasowski may have a tiny part but her light, Gaelic sexiness is perfect for the type of character she has to play within the film. Czop is convincing and I also enjoyed Benson's small-time wheeler/dealer.

Overall Somers Town is not that great a film and it will not show up amongst the best works from Meadows but it is not without its appeal. The plot is simple and doesn't go anywhere or real import but the film works in the realism and warmth of the two main characters and their small interactions. Not as brilliant as some would have you believe but a perfectly fine little film with a simple agenda.

This story has Tomo, a young teen (apparently homeless) from Nottingham coming to London. He lands in the area of London known as Somers Town and his first encounter has him being robbed and beaten by three young toughs. Tomo encounters Marek, a young Polish immigrant, in a local café. The aggressive and outgoing Tomo and the shy, lonely Marek make for an improbable match, but they gradually become fast friends.

One of the delights of the film is in its capturing the close friendship between the two boys. Both boys are taken with a somewhat older French waitress in the café where they met (Tomo remarks several times how "fit" she is). Emotions run high among these three. Older viewers will likely be reminded of how intensely life is experienced when young.

At seventy minutes this has the structure of a short story. Things progress with sweetness and gentle humor until a powerfully dramatic scene between Marek and his father is inserted toward the end.

Most of the movie is filmed in black and white. Indeed the photographic contrast is dramatic, giving the impression that there are not many shades of gray to take the edge off the black and white.

The soundtrack contains original music by Gavin Clark that adds much to the experience. The song, "When We had Faces" enhances the charming final scenes, leaving you on a high as the film closes.

Others have written that this film is a cute coming-of-age platonic love story. Well, that's one way of viewing the film. Another more direct reading is to look at the relationships between the white English and the immigrants (Polish and French). Both sets of people are portrayed somewhat stereotypically. The white English are Del Boy wideboys, lazy, rude, chavlike, selfish, self-centred, always on the scrounge, moaning, violent, loutish and drunk. The immigrants are decent hard-working people with a moral compass, who know what's right and what's wrong. Despite these stereotypical characters, this is an amazingly powerful film.

I'm a white middle-class English man and I've spent a lot of my life living in inner cities (London, Manchester, Birmingham, Wolverhampton and Milton Keynes). You know what? - these stereotypes rang (frighteningly) true to me. The film captured many of my frustrations with the way that the English national culture has changed; less tolerant, less considerate, less welcoming, more something-for-nothing. This is England today. The film made me feel ashamed of what we have become.

I left the cinema saddened; thinking that England could once again become a great country to live in if only we could remove all the bloody English.

"Somers Town" is one of the sweetest little films of any festival this year. Shane Meadows ("This Is England"), directing from a strikingly authentic Paul Fraser script, has crafted a winner with so much to like that it's hard to know where to begin.

The film takes its name from an area of inner London where the landscape is dominated by monstrous natural gas tanks and the construction of a station for a Channel Tunnel rail link. Marek (Piotr Jagiello) lives in the shadow of the humongous structure and spends his days shooting photographs of the area and trying to stay occupied as his father toils away at the construction site. Like many in the town, they are Polish immigrants who came looking for work and stayed. One day Tomo (Thomas Turgoose) appears out of nowhere, a boy Marek's age who is little more than a street urchin from the East Midlands to the locals. A fortuitous meeting between the two boys forges an unlikely friendship. Tomo is a tough punk (or thinks he is) and Marek is introspective and sensitive -- it's the basis for a character arc which is classic in the coming-of-age genre. We know where they're going -- how they get there is at the heart of "Somers Town." The outstanding supporting cast includes a sweetly understated Elisa Lasowski as Maria, the local girl who they both fall for, and the hilarious Perry Benson as Graham, who provides much of the film's comic relief (not that it needs any more than the boys already provide) as an eccentric neighbor who is literally indescribable. But it's the on screen chemistry between the boys which makes "Somers Town" the gem that it is. In a wise casting move, Turgoose and Jagiello, both 15, are the same age as their characters. In one scene where the two party a little too hearty, Meadows simply directed them to have fun and let the cameras roll. The result is one of the best scenes in any film I saw here this year.

"Somers Town" surprises at every turn. The film is shot completely in black and white save for the final sequence. It's a rarely used technique which, although unfamiliar at first, quickly falls away as the viewer focuses on the budding relationship between Tomo and Marek. After awhile we don't even notice the absence of color, for the story itself provides a rainbow of feelings. This device also makes lighting somewhat irrelevant, which allows a focus more on the characters rather than the look of the film. The soundtrack is simply a perfect match, with a playlist of tender acoustic songs that seems tailor-made for the narrative.

Everything about this film says "gentle and tender," from the friendship between the two boys -- what could almost be described as a platonic love story, to the longing the two have for Maria -- the object of affection who is always just out of reach, if only by age and maturity, and even to the father's tentative but loving relationship to his son -- in stark contrast to typical American films where the two would be constantly butting heads.

More than anything, though, there is no doubt that Turgoose and Jagiello carry this film on their young shoulders. Never have two young teens needed each other at this point in their lives as much as Tomo and Marek, and their relationship is so incredibly funny and touching that it had audiences in stitches and had me smiling from ear to ear from start to finish. It's no wonder that Turgoose and Jagiello each received the jury award for Best Actor here at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, where "Somers Town" had its North American Premiere. "Somers Town" is a charming and funny gem with a heart of gold.

Though clearly a bit of a "quickie" project made in the immediate afterglow of This Is England - and featuring that film's young star Thomas Turgoose in one of the two main roles - the DV-shot, (mainly) black-and-white, minimal-budgeted 'Somers Town' is by no means a "minor" Meadows. Indeed, in terms of tonal consistency, concision and cumulative emotional wallop, it's in several ways a more satisfying enterprise than its bigger, BAFTA-winning "brother". Indeed (again), there have been very few more moving films from any director since Meadows' own Dead Man's Shoes (2004) - though in this instance it's very much a case of joyful rather than sorrowful tears. This is a delightful, quietly topical, deceptively slight miniature about teenage friendship and first love - scarcely new subjects for cinema, but handled with sufficient sensitivity, humour and spirit to emphatically justify such a choice of material. Meadows and his scriptwriter Paul Fraser, meanwhile, deserve particular credit for so deftly maintaining such a delicate balance between the bouncily engaging story and its sad, even tragic subtexts.