Kidulthood

Over the waters, it seems anyone not from England is in love with that wonderful Richard Curtis-like view of the globe, which is neither bad or drastically inaccurate, but covers a very small percentage of what life in the UK and particularly ordinary UK people are actually like.

Refreshingly comes "Kidulthood", an all too accurate if at times sensational version of average school-kids in London. We meet an assortment of characters, most of them only likable on a limited level, who's only motivation is to get through each day and fill the voids with partying, be it with drugs or sex, or petty crime. The film takes us through two days of their lives and how each character, be it the misguided Trife (Aml Ameen) or the sexually motivated Becky (Jamie Winstone) as well as others, on the day when a big party looms and the suicide of a classmate seems lurking in the background.

Growing up on a London housing estate and seeing the changes throughout the years has made me over-critical of films depicting this. The dialogue always being too polished or too neat, the accents as caricatured as Dick Van Dyke's cockney chimney sweep (the recent "Green Street" and anything Guy Ritchie suffered from this in spades) but refreshingly all this is absent here. The performances are very real, so real, that it would be easy to confuse them as weak, particularly with characters such as Claire, played pitch perfectly by Madeleine Fairley with her words always having that hollow ring of someone saying what everyone around her wants to hear, rather than what they're really thinking. The language is fluid and the style completely believable; this is an excellent window into an average group of modern teens, as depressing as that is to admit.

Marrying it to the excellent visual style and the lack of obvious moralising is both a strength and a weakness. Visually fast paced, using sliding split-screen and cinema scope, married to the creme of British gangster rap, this looks great, hiding it's indie roots and looking more like Steven Soderberg's 'Ocean's Eleven' than Larry Clark's 'Kids'. The pros of this are the audience it needs to reach will interpret this as 'cool' and maybe will end up seeing the characters as teen movie icons, more than stopping and thinking what the overall message is.

It's disturbing, mostly in small gestures rather than the grand shocking ones. A pretty teenage girl is bullied, punched with a bone shattering crunch as her attacker screams at her to pick up the ring that flew off her finger, Claire is intimidated by her boyfriend by him warning that he'll tell everyone she is a lousy lay (and that's the clean version) with personal hygiene issues, as she pathetically begs him to stop; it's certainly not a film for those seeking a rose-coloured view of society.

"Kidulthood" is a much needed reply to the belief that England is a pretty cool place and it's teens as going through a harmless phase. It is entertaining but without selling itself out, despite an ending thats a little too explosive to believe.

Not since Garly Oldman's 'Nil By Mouth' has a film seemed so richly realistic and it's to the director and the writer's credit that they have achieved this.

Whilst sad, it's not as 'slash your wrists' depressing as you might assume either; the power of the film is one that lingers after and hopefully it is that, that might reach to people not only affected by what they've seen but most of all identifying with it.

STAR RATING: ***** The Works **** Just Misses the Mark *** That Little Bit In Between ** Lagging Behind * The Pits

When a girl who has suffered horrific bullying at school commits suicide, it leaves 15 year old Trife (Aml Ameen) and his two friends with the day off school. Trife starts the day by learning the unwanted news that his on-off girlfriend is pregnant and the baby might be his. Frustrated at hearing this, he sets off with his friends and embarks on a day of increasingly dangerous mischief. Juxtaposed with their story is that of his girlfriend, her qualms about keeping her baby and her moral free mate willing to do anything to score money and drugs. Their paths are set to collide and result in a devastating climax.

Kidulthood has that look and feel of a film out to shock (it managed a 15 certificate, but it must have only just scraped it!) If it's painting a picture of what life is really like for chavvy kids like this living on housing estates in inner-city areas, then the film manages to leave an even more downbeat and depressing taste in the mouth than it already did. It's well-acted enough, with a good lead in Ameen (who I recognized as Officer Lewis from The Bill-wouldn't have thought he'd come off as a 15 year old though) and a decent supporting cast, including an attractive presence in Madeleine Fairley (but, what can I say, a chavette's a chavvete!) It has a fine soundtrack, too, including some notable work from Mike Skinner and The Streets. It's far from a bad film, as it is, too, it's just so relentlessly bleak and with little in the way of humour and light that it never manages to come off as a truly enjoyable experience in any way. Still, it delivers what it says and more. ****

A bold and brave film, that never pulls any punches. A group of teenagers living very negative lives see the suicide, due to bullying of a school friend and the schools closure as an excuse for a day out the streets. Some of the characters are implicit in her fate, but refuse to see their culpability. Utterly selfish and shallow, many may think that these kids deserve nothing from society they abuse at every turn. Its adults who despise and are frightened by them are mere counterpoints throughout the film. An English version of KIDS but without the horrible voyeurism?? Do these kids deserve better from society? Do they a represent a threat to society itself? These kids may be horribly violent, disrespectful, but are incredibly believable. They cannot see outside the confined personal friendships and conflicts, but we are left with a genuine sense of loss and despair at the end of the film. A remarkable and striking British film

Kidulthood is an energetic snap shot of wasted youth in London that's flawed, but definitely interesting.

For the most part, the young cast (except for a very hammy jamie winstone) give strong, naturalistic performances-particularly noel clarke whos shocking turn as the local badman sam, will instantly make you forget clarkes "oafish boyfriend" routine on doctor who. What gives the performances a higher level of authenticity is the slang and profanity heavy dialogue that serves as an accurate representation of how the kids talk these days (you don't know how old i feel writing that!).

However the films mission to keep things as raw and gritty as possible ends up as its down fall- the script tries so hard to make the kids seem so reckless and hedonistic that the trouble they get into just gets unrealistic and shocking for the sake of being shocking after a while. Also, the story is very predictable- you will know how this one turns out , not even halfway through its running time .

Kidulthood doesn't come close to being as good as the likes of city of god or La haine, but its a well acted drama that I have to commend for trying to show a side of London that many other local films choose to ignore.

Firstly, I believe the low rating is unjustified, yet explicable because unless one has had any exposure to the kind of "feral" inner city youths depicted in this movie, then it would at times be next to impossible to understand: Over 95% of those in this movie speak the most uncultured form of English known as "Chav-speak". Even if one watched the movie with subtitles, much of what is said would be indiscernible to those outside the UK; or, dare I say, to those who are too educated to understand how society's lowliest communicate.

Thus, I firmly believe that this movie has been unjustly rated simply because US (& other)viewers could not understand much of the dialogue; and absolutely no concession has been made to simplify verbal exchanges to aid that matter. Nor should it have! That is to say, Kidulthood's writer has skilfully written a tale which is chillingly close to the bone, and every nuance perfectly reflects the gutter English which a growing underclass now understand each other by.

There are no heroes in this movie. And if you need happy endings or reasons why seemingly senseless actions happen - then look elsewhere. No character is particularly likable. And each does their best to be tougher than the next. For that is the only way to survive in such a hostile urban dystopia (which also happens to be modern Britain for many of the under-classes). The 'weak', we soon learn, have little chance of escape. For, in a culture of 'wayward misfits', the most wayward is the most different - the one who is too human and too sensitive.

Those viewers who'll have any chance of understanding the discourse, will also discover a totally amoral tale full of profoundly heartless, dislikeable, occasionally dangerous and fatally deprived youths whose future is so barren that they unwittingly must choose to churn every moment of the present into a wild ride to ultimately nowhere.

7/10. (for a disturbingly accurate, no holds barred, statement on the collapse of urban 'civilisation' as we know it. But... please don't expect to 'enjoy' this movie.)