Mariage à l'anglaise

found this film by mistake and wasn't expecting much, but was pleasantly surprised, a real gem of a movie. Cathy Burke singing was a surprise and she wasn't that bad, The characters were realistic and I know the area well so can attest to this, happy endings were not mandatory in this film which makes it more poignant. Could imagine another film with these characters being made five years down the line and still holding our interest. Dougray Scott was surprisingly attractive even with greasy hair, he showed a good understanding of the character. All in all the actors in this film showed why British film-making is up there with the best.

Compared to its subsequent b****rd offspring ("Elephant Juice" and "Born Romantic") this is a faultless masterpiece. Is it really enough to get a few admittedly very good actors together, get them to do a few mildly funny, mildly touching scenes and then edit it all together? Perhaps it would be if this film didn't have ideas above its station. I'm all for having characters who are f*cked-up and mentally disturbed, but how dare the makers of "This Year's Love" introduce just such a character (Liam, played by Ian Hart) and have him involved with all the main female characters in the movie and then just remove him from the story when they can no longer think of what to do with him? This is insulting and offensive. The balanced, "normal" people are all okay, so that's all that matters. Disgraceful. Liam is the only one of the characters who can't cope with all this bed-hopping, being dumped, falling in and out of love and all the rest of it. Yes, all his girlfriends in this film deserve better, but what about him? Who cares? Clearly not the makers of this half-hearted film.

There are pleasures to be had - Dougray Scott is excellent as the serial womaniser and complete git. His scene with Sophie towards the end ("Yes - meeeee!") is great. And Sophie has a superb monologue directed at the hapless Liam ("coming faster than a speeding bullet") which ends with her son waving "Bye Bye" to him. A fine scene. Henshall and McCormack are also good as ever. Though I wish someone would explain to London film-makers that people who work on supermarket tills rarely if ever get taxis from Camden to Heathrow. It would have been much funnier to show her getting on the tube and being endlessly frustrated at delays, crowds, breakdowns, broken escalators. See the end of Kingsley Amis's "Lucky Jim" for details of how this sort of scene can be done. Kathy Burke is, of course, superb. For some inexplicable reason, however, the band she plays in is fronted by the ever-loathsome David Gray. The scene where she takes centre stage is hilarious as Mister Gray fights to hog the limelight, waving his head about and thrashing his acoustic for all it's worth - thankfully the film-makers seem quite aware of how vile he is, and track in to the lovely kathy, forcing him out of the frame. Well done.

There are worse ways to spend two hours of your life (actually going to Camden, for example) but this film could have been so much better. Then again, on the evidence of the follow-up, "Born Romantic", they could also do a whole lot worse.

This Year's Love follows the (love) lives of 6 inhabitants of London's Camden area.

The movie starts a bit like Four Weddings and A Funeral. Two people in bed wake up, lay there for a moment, then realise that they're late for a wedding. The only difference is that it's their wedding!

After getting spliced, they go off to the reception. 35 minutes into wedded bliss, the groom Danny, is told by a guest that his new wife had sex with the best man. Danny confronts Hannah and blows his top before leaving.

So begins two years of "swapping" between the 6 characters.

Kathy Burke, veteran of comedy from her Harry Enfield days, plays the best character - Mary - a self proclaimed "fat bird" who is surprised at the attentions she gets from the 3 men.

Hannah is played by the gorgeous Catherine McCormack, previously seen in Braveheart. In the second section of the film, two years on from the wedding, she is flatmate to Ian Hart's emotionally (and a bit mentally) unstable character. She meets, and is seduced by, Emily Woof (from The Full Monty). Ian Hart, thinking that he stands a chance with Hannah, tries to commit suicide when her walks in on the two girls in bed.

The performances from the main cast are fine throughout and the film, whilst not being a laugh-a-minute comedy, certainly has its funny scenes. The nomadic Cameron meets his current girlfriend Sophie's rich parents and advises her father that he's not usually not too choosy about his women, in fact he'd "f*** a barber's floor".

This Year's Love is a film that will not attain the heights of other recent Brit-flicks like The Full Monty and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, but still deserves its place amongst the Top 10 of the last few years' best British Independent movies.

"This Year's Love" (18) - Warner Village Cinema, Inverness - 19 February 1999

Whatever it is, this film will never be classified as coming out of the Beatrice Potter School of Charm Cinema. It's rough and rude, immoral and bawdy, slap-stick and frightening and dispiriting. Yet I liked it!

It certainly isn't the sort of film your vicar or grannie would want to be seen watching but I defy anyone to sit through the two hours of sexual relationships without laughing out loud in spite of themselves at the below-the-belt humour, wondering all the while if life is really like this in Camden Town. It's a film that lingers over such sights as tattooing and bed hopping, coke snorting and boozing and annual partner shuffling. It covers three years of the partnership permutations of six individuals. What they all have in common is a need for affection, a fantastic command of swear words, a terrible need to empty all booze glasses and fag packets, desire for self destruction, and a denial that there is any future to look forward to.

There's no real plot. It's the sparks coming from the rubbing together of the fascinating dysfunctional characters that lights the tinder. We start off with Scotsman tattooist Douglas Henshall storming out of his wedding reception when he discovers that his wife of ten minutes, Scotswoman dress designer Catherine MacCormack, has been "practising" with his best man. He takes consolation in the arms of Heathrow Airport cleaner, Kathy Burke. We switch to Scotsman Dougray Scott, untalented artist with the paint brush, who makes a play for anything in skirts with "fine bone structure". In spite of his problems with personal hygiene - you can smell his hair from the first row in the balcony - he is the next to form a liaison with Kathy Burke. When Jennifer Ehle arrives on the scene it's as an upper class single mother with a permanent need for a bit of rough. She lives alone in a barge, wears Doc Martins and dreadlocks, disowns her posh background. We've heard that story too often for it to be original and this thread is a weak link in the chain of relationships. Nevertheless it serves to introduce the sixth shy nobody character, Ian Hart, who turns out to be the one who terrifies you out of your seat when he loses his control. There's a bit of lesbianism thrown in and the writer director, David Kane, reveals his roots and social leanings when he does a hatchet job on the upper crust at a cocktail party. He don't like 'em. That's fer sure, fer sure.

I would hate to think that Camden Town as portrayed in this film represents the folk that live there, or anywhere in UK. Of course it doesn't any more than Coronation Street represents Manchester or Stendaz represents the east end of London. It's knowing that these warped and flawed characters are cartoons that makes the film acceptable. It's their dialogue and delivery that makes the film so enjoyable. And there's an added educational bonus. Your personal database of taboo words and base picturesque expressions will be expanded enormously. Even Channel 4 junkies will find novelties here. Let's say 8* out of 10. Maybe even 9.

C U James

Well, I have read other comments less than flattering but my wife and I loved it. I don't care about the coincidences and any small contrivances, the characters were so well portrayed that by the end I knew them all personally and could relate them to people in my past. Don't get picky, do you want more of this or more 'You've got Mail'? I know what I prefer.