Love Story

Dave is homeless, living in a public toilet with other crack users and drunks. Dave gets by with what little he can steal but when his girlfriend goes into labour he has to work to try and get some more readies to get her something nice. He goes out with his mate to try and get some stolen goods and then sell it off to dealers for cash. However in the bleak world of desperate need, selfishness and exploitation nothing is simple.

Prior to watching the film Football Factory, I took the opportunity to watch this early short film from director Nick Love. I'm not sure if the title suggests that this film is very personal to Love or if it is just an ironic title given how totally absent 'love' is from the lives that we are presented with in this very bleak short film. The plot summary above may suggest a narrative but there really isn't one, instead this is more of a look at the lives of drug addicts and the world in which they exist. I say 'exist' instead of 'live' because there isn't life here and that is shown by even the baby that arrives into the world being given a one-way ticket to hell with little or no chance. The film is relentlessly bleak and it offers no solutions, silver lining or hope. The characters are horrible, drug-addled, swearing relentlessly and prone to moments of sudden and pointless violence in place of any other form of expression.

The film is delivered with style, which is not totally a good thing. The fancy camera moves and the quick-fire 'geezer' dialogue make it feel a little bit like Lock Stock and that takes something away from the grim reality of the film. And this is a shame because the film is convincingly real – as difficult as that is to accept. This world sees exploitation and use in the place of brotherhood and love and it is horrible to watch. Sexual acts are performed out of basic economic needs and never genuine affection, and friends are only a few seconds from using or abusing each other. As an experience it is very real and it is as close to this life as I ever want to be.

The cast do well but it suffers from being a little full of well-known faces who distract from their characters. Foreman is convincing – all matey one minute, all swearing anger the next; he is frightening because I see him on buses and street corners all the time and he gets his character spot on. The guy playing the taxi driver is not as good because his involvement in this world is not as well developed as that of Dave's but his performance is more subtle. Patsy Palmer is a surprise and her fame takes away from her character – it was hard not to see her as a crack version of her Eastenders character. Support is good but the use of Thewlis and Bremner in such minor roles tends to distract from what they are actually doing and makes you focus on who they are instead.

Overall it is a well-made film that is well written and well directed even if the subject matter doesn't really deserve the geezer style that the film gives it. The cast deliver the goods well even if their fame detracts from the telling a bit but otherwise it is relentlessly depressing and grim even if it realistic and convincing. Hardly a fun night in but a good look into this world for those that want to look there.

I'd never heard of this short that came out in 1999, I think it was a Channel 4 short. There are some familiar faces to UK viewers, Patsy Palmer and Paul Nichols from Eastenders and Ewan Bremner from Trainspotting among other films, plus the always amazing David Thewlis who was in one of my favourite movies, 'Naked'. It's a harsh look at a day in the life of a cab driver and some junkies, but in 15 minutes of film. The film starts with Jamie Foreman talking about an obviously violent evening before he has some news that his girlfriend is going to give birth any time. I was sad it ended so soon, but I found it short, sharp and it left me thinking about what I'd seen when it finished. Which is always a good thing. Harrowing and thoughtful and worth a watch for the decent acting, decent camera work and good editing.

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

Dave (Jamie Foreman) is a homeless junkie who is standing having a conversation with some blokes when his friend Tommy (Ronnie McCann) comes racing round the corner and tells him his girlfriend Sharon (Patsy Palmer) has just gone into labour. Dave tries to cope with this as best he can, but he's really more concerned with scoring his next fix. So after dropping his girlfriend at the hospital, he dashes out with Tommy to swipe some goods he can sell to dealers for some gear. Juxtaposed with this story is a sub-plot about a taxi driver who wants to feel loved in his life-and is going a pretty seedy, pathetic way about getting it!

I was fiddling around with my Football Factory DVD the other day and went through the extras and noticed Nick Love's short film (his debut project, in fact) Love Story. What could this be?, I wondered, and gave it a look.

I'm sure the title was a little in-joke to the writer and director's surname, but I'm sure it was more to do with the actual tale of the taxi driver's quest for love (and maybe Dave's love for Sharon???) But I guess the only person you could ever ask to know what it actually was is Love himself.

Anyway, as I said, this is an impressive short film, motivated by the excellent, raw performances. In the lead role, Foreman convincingly portrays the sort of hard-core, messy junkie that must lurk in many of the dark corners of the slums and alleys in London. So too does Palmer as the co-star, also very true and someone you could really buy as being in that situation. As for the other story, I don't know the name of the actor who plays the cabbie, but his is also a disturbingly real presence. He truly comes off as a low-life and a pathetic man, seeking the services of junkie prostitutes in filthy, run-down public lavotories and getting a kick out of trying to degrade them even more and talking to them like sh!t, but at the same time you are able to feel his loneliness and isolation as just one of thousands of separate, un-communicating people in the big, big city. Ewen Bremner is surprisingly wasted in a minor supporting role, but Paul Nichols is strangely memorable and impressive as a wannabe hardman-gangsta dealer.

Not all of Love's work I've considered to be really brilliant, but his films do have a distinguishable quality to them and he is one of our most promising rising directors and this was quite an impressive foundation on which to plant the building blocks. ****

Nick Love has become a pretty successful director by British standard, making a couple of good films, like Goodbye Charlie Bright and the Football Factory. Watching this story on the Football Factory DVD I don't understand why.

Love Story is like a bad episode of Eastenders. It focuses on Dave (Jamie Foreman) and his girlfriend Sharon (Patsy Palmer) who is giving birth to his baby. Nick Love paints a picture of drug use, criminality and prostitution. It is a grim film which doesn't even have a plot. I couldn't care about any of the characters during the short. The acting is sub-par. Patsy Palmer basically plays her character as Bianca Jackson with more swearing. There was no narrative structure in this film and a poor effort from Nick Love. It is not worth watching.