Runners

The power of this movie lies in the characters and the emotional roller coaster that ensues.

The acting, screenplay and direction are exceptional and the psychology here is very realistic and moving, especially between father and daughter.

This movie is a gem, and a journey which is not to be missed.

10/10.

Gosh the eighties in Britain looked pretty grim in this darkly shot atmospheric vérité drama from Poliakoff, which is both neatly written and directed. A frequent feature is Victoria station which looks like some kind of jumble sale. The transfer I watched on Freeview seemed smudgy but in a way added to the hazy mood. We have the bereft father scouring grungy London alongside another parent on her own hunt. The characterisations and depth to the story take a while to unravel themselves but it becomes more complex, even philosophical, as we get filled in bit by bit as to the psychodrama, and the parental dynamics are more shown, not told. It's not too harsh actually, as there is a tender side to every interaction, and to a large extent the viewer is left to complete the nightmare exploitative possibilities largely in his or her own head. The pace picks up a bit halfway and I won't venture into spoiler territory, but on the whole the tone is thoughtful rather than dynamic. There's a touch of the drizzly Odyssey through a specific political landscape, with various sketchy yet colourful characters popping up. There's big motifs like the many random juvenile workers crawling out of the woodwork in virtually every scene, Norman Tebbit clearly features on interior graffiti in one scene as does his 'get-on-your bike' trope throughout the screenplay, and a there's this mad nostalgia for youthful fancy in the two adult protagonists for instance all in the mix, and it all makes for a slow and ambiguous reveal. Largely it's metaphorical, apart from a great little unhinged monologue from Dad near the end, and, I guess this is the point, everyone remains as buttoned up and and as so very English as they all began, or is there possibility of repentance? Ultimately it's strangely warm and optimistic. This beguiling little film definitely goes in my 'hidden gem' box.

I've just watched a reasonable copy of "Runners" on YouTube, with just a few minutes of indistinct dialogue.

Recently Stephen Poliakoff has re-visited the theme of a desperate parent searching for a missing child with a sub-plot in the TV series "Summer of Rockets". In both cases I became a bit impatient with the parent's obsession and the unlikelihood of success, and when the child was finally tracked down it seemed implausible.

As other reviewers have noted, we never learn what prompted an apparently happy Rachel to disappear. Nor do we know who tipped off her father about her whereabouts and why.

Quite a few of the outdoor scenes - such as at stations and in Burlington Arcade - appeared to have been shot with unwitting members of the public rather than extras. This did impart some realism, though in one case a queue of rail passengers were staring at the camera.

Kate Hardie, 14 when the film was released, does very well as Rachel.

As a fan of old black-and-white films featuring London in the 1950s, I was interested to see some familiar 1980s' localities.

James Fox plays a father that is obsessed with finding his missing daughter. He encounters a group of people who have children that have gone missing, and attempts to go to London to look for her. He encounters a variety of assorted crazies, grimy streets, and filthy places. The film holds the viewers attention for the entire result with a surprising ending.

Written by Stephen Poliakoff and excitingly directed by Charles Sturridge, 'Runners' is an exemplary drama about a comfortably off, middle-class family whose lives are shattered after the sudden disappearance of their eldest daughter Rachel (Kate Hardie). Two years interminably pass, their case becomes cold, the news media is disinterested, yet the resolute father (James Fox), single-mindedly, bordering on obsession, still ardently believes that his daughter is alive, and Stoically, he undertakes the Herculean task of trying to find his beloved Rachel somewhere in the oppressive vastness of London. After taking a room in a hotel his ceaseless peregrinations lead him wearily through the multitudinously grey, unlovely tributaries of the city, desperate appeals are made on the radio, hundreds of Xeroxed photos are paraded to disinterested parties; Tom's initial optimism gradually ebbing after the unfathomable deceptions of those dingier denizens he interacts with during his increasingly desperate quest to locate Rachel.

Poliakoff's cogent text paints a unsettlingly vivid tableau of the increasingly frustrated Lindsay family's life disrupting despair, but the most compelling aspects of 'Runners' is the bracingly realistic milieu of London, its colourfully rendered array of not always benign Dickensian characters, and one can sense the unruly stink of decay, poverty, and pernicious vice; a heady, neon-bright metropolis that bedazzles, so enticingly you are distracted from its ruinous, all-consuming, parasite-riddled underbelly. The burgeoning relationship between Tom and fellow sufferer Helen (Jane Asher) is appealingly nuanced, the debilitating grief they share over their missing children binds them fitfully together. Tom, now estranged from his wife Gillian (Eileen O'Brien), is strongly attracted to, and wholly galvanised by Helen's implacable belief that she will be reunited with her missing son. With exceptionally strong performances, dynamic location shooting, George Fenton's lively score, and a refreshingly unsentimental climax, Director Sturridge's rewardingly frank drama remains a vital, sadly neglected 80s gem, 'Runners' is long overdue a worthy HD restoration.