Somers Town

Somers Town is a typical example of an indie film made for the sake of being indie; it's distilled, slow moving and at times poignantly moving in as much of an anti-melodramatic manner as possible, yet it's also blatantly empty, pointless and more often than not, unremarkable. Coming off of his critically acclaimed This Is England, director Shane Meadows here crafts a mostly pedestrian feature that doesn't quite understand the distinction between meditative and sleepy. Sure enough it can be an amusing seventy minutes, with some nice scenes between two very capable actors who play natural characters, but as a whole, these sets of ideas never really mesh into one coherent piece of work. Being more likely to induce drowsiness rather than enlightenment, Somers Town, much like it's closing sequence, is like watching someone's holiday photos as they prattle on about their mundane day over each slide; at times there will be something interesting to be heard, but it just never seems to justify taking the time to do so. This is a shame because deep within the movie, there is definite heart and some strong themes, yet smothered by countless scenes of uninteresting, minute details, this follow up to Meadows' previous success feels more like a forgettable intermission rather than a whole, solid production.

Set in modern day London, around the construction of the Channel train system, Somers Town tells the tale of two teenage boys as they slowly find their way into their new and unfamiliar setting. Tomo (Thomas Turgoose) is from the East-Midlands of England, and having "nothing" back home (this is all that is revealed) has ventured to London to try and make something of himself; he doesn't know what he's going to do, but it seems he doesn't have much choice either way. Marek (Piotr Jagiello) is from Poland, having moved with his father to England after his parents break-up back home. Eventually both characters meet, and through their mutual alienation of being away from home and having nothing to do, they form a friendship. What follows from here is a whimsy, but deeply grounded tale that attempts to document the coming of age of two young lads as they come to terms with their new surroundings, and their new partnership. It can be sweet and fun to watch as the boys run mischief and share their conflicting ideas on topics such as food and women, yet much of this is saved for the remaining second half of the feature. The first half is notably dim, and although has its moments, feels more like an overlong introduction.

Shot in monochrome, the film takes on a style that is reminiscent of this year's In Search of a Midnight Kiss in its romanticism of an otherwise dreary, worn down city. This side of London isn't pretty, as Tomo finds out early on when he's brutally mugged, and so the photography does well to echo the film's more ambitious, arty nuances used to portray the gritty, down to earth side of the story. One thing that it complements really well however, and not to positive effect, is the film's minimalist nature; the black and white does well to bring to the life the film's greatest, most poignant sequences, yet the filling between these areas becomes a lot less interesting to watch as a result. This was a problem in the aforementioned film also, but being that Somers Town is dramatically shorter winded, the less successful moments don't hinder the film's romanticism of realism to irreversible effect. The soundtrack is just as bare, and features the rather worn-out acoustic, indie compositions that fit the tone of the film well, but never go anywhere or do anything remarkable; it's developed at a suitable pace, yet the score itself is too timid and dry to warrant much attention outside of its cliché appearance.

The primary intention that writer Paul Fraser here seems to striving for is simply to make us laugh, and such he does, but not very often. In fact he does a whole lot more than strike a chuckle or two; he crafts realistic, three-dimensional characters, he uses natural dialogue and mundane chatter to occupy his story, but such is where these small indulgences in practising the mundane becomes mundane in themselves. To be able to write everyday life, one can certainly involve realistic banter, dry themes and an almost nonexistent, nonlinear storyline, but when such is translated onto the big screen, it looses its relevancy. Somers Town certainly has integrity, and it has genuine heart, but in the end its pedestrian approach simply becomes too much of too little to achieve what it is obviously setting out to do. The actors do a strong job with the script and meadows certainly manages to get more than a few compelling scenes out of all involved, but the overwhelming feeling by the end is one of disquieted indifference; there's no denying that these seventy minutes feature some fine moments, but such indulgences could probably have been better suited to a short film format. It's a decently short affair for those who can appreciate dry-bones, hyper-realism cinema, but for anyone looking for anything profound or entertaining, you should probably stay away from Somers Town less you be mugged of your consciousness.

• A review by Jamie Robert Ward. For more reviews of all the latest movies please visit: http://www.invocus.net

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.

Shane Meadows' beautiful snapshot of life for two teenagers in North London, "Somers Town", is a million miles away from "This is England" in tone, but has no less class or brilliance about it. Filmed in wonderful black and white, this is a delightful, entertaining and involving piece about youth, culture and friendship.

The power of Meadows's film-making is in his characters. Something rings fundamentally true about the people that he brings to the screen, and the writing of Paul Fraser (a long time Meadows-collaborator) is a great help to this film. The dialogue is humorous, moving and insightful, which gets the audience utterly involved in this film. Added to this, the acting is wonderful. Thomas Turgoose, who was spectacular in "This is England", continues to be an impressive and interesting screen presence. He is ably supported, not just by Piotr Jagiello, who plays the Polish teenager Marek, but by the rest of the small, but perfectly formed, ensemble.

This film is not just an entertaining and moving piece, but is also a beautiful film with a dash of severity. There is a particularly emotive and thought-provoking scene where the immigrant father and son talk to each other. Britain's debates on immigration often ignore the individuals involved in the issues, and that scene cuts right to an unexplored area of the matter.

The beauty of the film is not just in its emotions and characters, but also in its photography. Monochrome is a form of cinematography which lends itself to beauty, but Meadows exploits this magnificently. There is a change to colour during the film which could have been crass but is in fact wonderful. The images are also accompanied by a beautiful series of songs which give the film real character. All of these elements come to fore in a number of dialogue-less sequences.

Meadows has created a lovely piece of cinema. Short though it is, that is part of its charm. It is not extraneous or self-indulgent. It is what it is: a simple joy to be delighted in by many.

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.