Night People

Set in Scotland's Capital City, Edinburgh, on Halloween night. This is a beautifully shot film with excellent performances from a promising ensemble cast. A young boy who has run away from home meets with an enticing stranger. A Priest whose faith is being tested to the limit encounters a young girl sleeping rough with a dark secret. A mother with an impossible dilemma is forced to take her 5 year old daughter out on a risky journey and a single father makes hilarious attempts to cover up a crime committed out of love for his kids.

A stunning debut from Director Adrian Mead. Night People, does indeed take us on a journey. Dark and despairing in places, filled with hope and compassion in others.

I saw this film last night and was very pleasantly surprised. I really liked it! The photography was stunning, I loved the subtle differences in the night shots of Edinburgh as the time passed, using the changing light brilliantly. Wildlife-in-the-city shots were also unexpected and this was a clever way to change scenes. For a film that has a supposedly micro budget it had the look of a film with very high production values all round. I liked that there were proper endings to the stories, sensible, believable endings. Not too predictable, we could see the end was coming as it was getting near the morning, but each story could have ended differently, and I think that the audience cared about the characters stories. There wasn't one poor performance from any of the actors, and it's to Adrian Mead's credit as Director that they carried off the comedy as well as the drama. And the little girl? Where on earth did they get her? She was wonderful but I don't think I could stand her if she was around my house all day! It would be unfair to say that this is one of the better Scottish films of recent years, it could quite easily be one of the better British films.

We enjoyed this film. Although the subject matter appeared to show the darker side of society, at the end of the day most of the plot lines finished with a positive perspective, although universally happy endings were not ever likely. The photography was excellent, using relatively simple subjects to create scenes of great beauty, without using the easy option of going for all of Edinburgh's more photogenic attractions. It could actually have been any city (except for the accents....) Where there are a number of different plot lines, it is always difficult to maintain interest in them all equally, but the script seemed to get it mostly right. I thought a couple of the plots were very good, and I was less interested in one of the plot-lines, but I suspect everyone watching this film will have their own favourites. The point to a film like this is to come away full of images and stories relating to one night in one city, and I thought the film was successful in this regard. There must always be room for a slower-paced film, but with relatively simple plots, where one can appreciate the craft of camera-work, use of light, sharp dialogue, etc etc.. I would recommend this film.

Night People tries to be both a gritty account of life at the bottom of society in contemporary Edinburgh, and a heart-warming story of hope. The interaction of these two concepts ultimately felt too contrived: I needed to be better convinced that some of the characters really could break out from their stereotypes in the way the film wanted me to believe.

The film is entirely character-driven. It is centred on several disparate groups of people, who are merely living out events at the same time and in the same city. The screenplay constantly switches between their individual plots. Night People might be described as a series of short films on similar themes that have been carefully edited together. But that would be unfair. The film needs this variety to disguise the fact that each of the characters spends most of their time in the same location. Unfortunately, since the film is developing half a dozen different stories at once, I think it struggles to give individual characters enough screen-time to engage fully with the audience.

Night People has a lot going for it. Visually it is very well crafted. The film makes clever use of Edinburgh's ever-changing light and sky to create some visually stunning interludes, which give the other scenes a sense of time and place. The script is strong: Some fantastic one-liners, and the kind of small observations on the human condition that everyone can relate to. Perhaps some of the funniest lines are delivered a 'wee' bit too quickly for non-Scottish audiences to comprehend. Overall the acting is first class, in spite of the relative inexperience of most of the cast.

But in the final analysis, Night People doesn't quite hang together. It's on the verge of being a really good film, but yet it left me feeling hollow.

I have just finished watching 'Night People'.

At first it felt dark and despairing but the vision of hope and positivity and the essential goodness of people emerged very convincingly and compellingly.

The direction, acting, cinematography the whole work of art was so moving - a Scottish film where people talked real talk with none of that ranting that often emerges as shorthand for how we Scots are supposed to communicate.

The stories and the characters were all engaging and the twists towards optimism from such an initially bleak context were laden with hope and redemption, and an unexpected degree of humour.

Kerr and Mead can be justly proud of this achievement.