A rough, short-tempered patriarch of a working-class family sees his life and the relationships around him slowly unravel.A rough, short-tempered patriarch of a working-class family sees his life and the relationships around him slowly unravel.A rough, short-tempered patriarch of a working-class family sees his life and the relationships around him slowly unravel.
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This approach makes the film a little weak structurally and does produce some scenes where Oldman relies on heavy use of music to just play over silent scenes but mostly it works. The way that it does work is that the experience is so visceral and convincing that the viewer doesn't care so much that it lacks a story with star, middle and end but rather feels the scenario and characters. Oldman directs in the grim and smoke of the environment and, while not technically impressive to watch, it works with the theme and content. What he does very well is draw some great performances from the British cast. Winstone has become famous off the back of characters like this and he nails not just the anger but the misplaced sense of frustration and inadequacy; he doesn't wear it like a badge but merges it really well into his character so that it is easy to just see him as an angry thug. Burke is better known as a comedic actress but she is tremendous here really convincing and full of fear, when she says she feels so very old I really believed her. Creed-Miles feels a bit out to one side but is also strong as are Morse, Morrison and others in supporting roles.
Nil By Mouth is not a fun or pleasant film and the language is extreme and endless. Nor is it a great film in regards structure, flow or narrative. However what it is very good as is an experience which is convincing and uncomfortably real. Poverty is terrible in any place and being trapped in it for generations is worse; Oldman does not pity his characters nor does he blame others for their problems but he makes them both sympathetic but also repugnant and it is the overall experience of watching that make thes film one worth seeing.
There's not really a plot here. What we're looking at is a family in council housing - a poor, distraught family, torn apart by the people. Kathy Burke is Valerie, the long suffering wife of Ray (Ray Winstone). Ray is a drunken abusive man, haunted by his demons. He fights regularly with Valerie's heroin addicted brother, who cannot escape his own life style. Over this watches Valerie's mother, Janet, in a resigned fashion, lost to any real hope of something different. We get to spend some time with these characters, seeing how their lives develop. Unlike traditional movie structures we're not really building to a giant convergence of plot lines, a climatic final scene. Real life is not like that - it's a series of events, marked by occasions. This is the view the movie takes and it works well because it makes it far more credible than a final showdown involving a gun and a murder. What's even more interesting is that while Ray is `bad' he could not be quite considered evil - there's a darkness in him that he's fighting against. There's a great scene involving a telephone which brilliantly highlights how torn apart these characters are and how nothing is ever quite as simple as you would like to believe.
The acting is astonishing. I can't praise either Burke or Winstone enough. One of the reasons this movie is so unnerving is that the characters are believable - and this is due to the actors behind them. When Winstone's face becomes animated with range it really seems like he is ferocious, full of venom. You would race across the other side of the street from him, seeing the fury inside this man. Burke herself could have just played the demure wife but she adds far more complexity. Yes she is suffering, but there's a great hint of steel beneath her - shown in the delivery of a dialog, or the turn on a face. By not distracting us with pretty faces, director Gary Oldham manages to deliver actual characters. The energy - unflinching - delivered by them makes them seem horribly like people you know can exist within miles of your home.
Oldham himself shows a good directorial view. The movie uses a lot of hand-cameras (and presumably some unusual film stock) to get a grittier realism. This is aided by some excellent cinematography - the lighting is bleak, subdued, in keeping with the movie. Even the sunshine is pale, as if there's never really any hope to be had. The sound design is crisp, and generally minimalist - instead letting the camera and acting tell the story rather than forced manipulation via a composed piece. The set design also deserves a nod - the house around which a lot of the movie resolves has a real `lived in' feel. Too often Hollywood directors décor their house in a few luxury sofas and leave it at that. Here there's a real sense of a home with condiments and grit engrained in the walls. It all adds up the power. Ultimately though it is Oldham's unflinching depiction of the events that stands in the movies favour - the camera is close, it's there, you cannot escape through some banal metaphor (which is typical of most movies).
`Nil By Mouth' is more of an `experience' movie. It's a wrenching, arresting viewing that is sometimes very difficult to watch because you know there's a horrible shade of truth to it. It's not necessarily something you'd watch repeatedly (unless you've a shade of masochism to you), but it is something that will leave a little indelible mark on you as something to muse on. Definitely worth seeing - but be prepared. 8.1/10.
Oldman set about to create a gritty and colourful portrayal of the rough end of life in Saafff Lhaandan and in that respect he was f**kin sucessfull you bunch ah chaaaants!
The camera work is disjointed and initially appears clumsy, but the expertly chosen angles and focuses soon become enthralling. It is nicely gritty and rough around the edges. Take a special note of the excellent sound design - it really adds to the overall atmosphere of the cityscape Olman so expertly creates.
The narrative progression is pretty much non-existent. Like all realist films its not really about what is happening, but the broader issues exposed by smaller events within the film. These include some brutal moments from Winstone and also some heavy drinking/clubbing binges.
The acting is so good and so believable that I forgot I was watching a film - it is almost a documentary and those not familiar with the actors within the film may be fooled into thinking that is what they were watching.
Olman also introduces some subtle symbolism (the moment with the red balloon for example) but is never heavy handed or distracting.
Winstone and Burke really are stunning in this film, and the ending is a brilliant piece of ambiguity and hope. CHeck out Winstone's subtle touching moments with his daughter - it brings a tear to the eye.
Classic in the modern sense of the word.
Did you know
- TriviaThe song the grandmother sings in the pub at the end of the film was dubbed; the actual singer was Gary Oldman's mother.
- GoofsA boom mic is visible in the supermarket parking lot.
- Quotes
Ray: She took his dinner in to him once, me mum, in the pub, and plonked it in front of him on a tray. Knife and fork, salt and pepper. He said, "What's that?" She said, "It's your dinner. I thought you might be hungry. You ain't eaten for three fucking days. You live in here, you might as well fucking eat in here." It's funny. He didn't like that, did he? Mugged him up in front of his mates. Thought more of them cunts than he did us. Lovely. Yeah. She got a clump over that. Well, she would, wouldn't she? He was always pissed in there, weren't he? You know? We go in the pub to get our living, you know? That's where we do our business. He'd be there spunking out while we're sitting at home without a dinar, you know, thank you. And he'd promise things. You know? Promise to take us places, you know? Never did. Never took us anywhere. And when he did bother to come home he'd sit in that fucking chair, doss off with his tray in his lap. And I'd just stand there looking at him. I'd look in his face, and my mother'd go upstairs, and I'd say, "Say, Mum, ain't Daddy coming to bed?" And she'd say, "No. No, he's all right, son. He'll come up when he wakes up." He's gotta wake up to go to bed! Now, I'd stand there looking at this fucking old man, you know, my dad, you know, in that chair, that horrible fucking chair with the shiny, worn-out arms. I should've burnt the fucking thing. By the end he was hemorrhaging from both ends, you know? I used to hear him in the morning hanging on to the khazi. It was lovely. Never stopped him going to the pub, though. No, he was well enough to do that. Now, one day, right, he's staggering across the pub pissed from the night before. He's gone over, crunch, right on his mooey, like a fucking ironing board. His hooter's around here, his railings all over the fucking place. Me and me mum had to go the hospital to see him. We walked in. He's laying in bed. He's got tubes up his arms, fucking up his nose, down the back of his Gregory. He didn't look well. Fucking vodka was keeping him alive. Well, I ain't that interested, so I'm having a little mooch about, you know. I looked above his bed, and there's this sign, right, with some weird writing on it. I couldn't read too well at the time. I said to my mum, "Mum, what's that say? You know, that sign above Daddy's head. All right?" She said, "Nil by mouth." "What's that, a football score? 'One-nil, three-nil, two-nil, a geezer called fucking Nil.'" Yeah. I said, "Well, what's it mean?" She said, "It means... "
Mark: It means nothing to eat.
Ray: Yeah, nothing down the...
[points into his mouth]
Mark: Nothing down the... Yeah.
Ray: Yeah, all right. I remembered that day, because I could've put that on his fucking tombstone, you know? Because I don't remember one kiss, you know, one cuddle. Nothing. I mean, plenty went down, not a lot came out, you know, nothing that was any fucking good. And I'd look at this man that I call Dad, you know? My father, I knew him as Dad. He was my fucking dad but he weren't like other kids' dads, you know? It was as if the word itself were enough, and it ain't.
Mark: That ain't when he died though, is it?
Ray: No. He lived another ten years, slippery old cunt. He died one afternoon in that fucking armchair. About right. I went round to see him, you know, when he was plotted up at me mother's.
Mark: Hatcham Road?
Ray: Yeah, Hatcham Road. He was upstairs in that front bedroom. Laid out.
Mark: Free.
Ray: Yeah. Yeah. I've gone up there, gone in. I'm sitting on the bed looking at him. He's laying there like... Mullered. And it was like he'd shrunk, you know? He was a big man.
Mark: He was a lump.
Ray: Yeah. You should know. You got enough clumps off the cunt.
[sighs]
Ray: And I just touched him, you know? He was fucking freezing cold. It frightened the life out of me. I was looking at him, you know? For the first time in my life, I talked to him. I said, "Why didn't you ever love me?"
- ConnectionsFeatured in Especial Cannes: 50 Anos de Festival (1997)
- SoundtracksLas Vegas
Written by Mitch Murray and Peter Callander
Performed by Tony Christie
Courtesy of MCA Records
- How long is Nil by Mouth?Powered by Alexa
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $9,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $266,130
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $28,367
- Feb 8, 1998
- Gross worldwide
- $284,477
- Runtime2 hours 8 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1
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