Shopping de nuit

My faith is slowly but surely being restored in the British film industry. It would seem that the steady tirade of shoddy Lock, Stock & Bridget Jones rip-off's is being offset by some nice low budget character driven pieces that are begging to be seen by a larger audience.

Late Night Shopping is one such film. Yet to secure a release in the US, this is definitely a film to keep an eye out for.

Saul Metzstein's debut feature is a glorious exploration of friendship and how we choose to spend our lives. The four main characters all work nightshifts and spend the time before and after work drinking coffee and talking about how they hate their jobs and lives in general.

Lenny works in a directory enquiries call centre and has trouble speaking to women. Sean is a hospital porter who's girlfriend works a day shift, consequently he never sees her and wonders if she still stays with him. Vincent works in a supermarket and is a self-confessed womaniser who has a three strike rule. He will only sleep with a woman three times before he dumps them. Jody works for a computer components company and constantly feels left out by the three boys.

The four talk and go about their dull, mundane existence. The film however is anything but mundane. The tight script from Jack Lothian sparkles with wit and charm and you grow attached to the characters and genuinely feel for them. The story doesn't fall into cheap clichés and keeps the viewer on it's toes, not rushing into any obvious or cheesy climaxes.

In a welcome change of pace for recent British movie the film contains no violence and no drug-use. Sex is hinted at rather than shown and swearing is kept to a minimum.

The movie was filmed in Glasgow and director Saul Metzstein does a bang up job off making the grey, gloomy city that I know look like a bustling, lively metropolis. In-fact If I didn't know it was filmed in Glasgow I would have a hard job recognising it, although I did spot a few places that I know.

I'm not familiar with any of the actors from the film, but I was very impressed with the performances that they give. They really made me feel for them and I saw I bit of myself in each one (being a twentysomething loser in a dead-end job myself).

Late Night Shopping is easily one of the best films to come out of Britain in a long time and demands to be seen by as many people as possible.

4/5

I've seen some pretty unfair reviews of this film and I don't think they're justified at all. There seems to be a lot of fixation around the credibility of relationships and plots blah, blah but I found my brain negotiated it's way around that because the dialogue sort of sweeps you along. It was a bit of a guys movie, and if you liked Swingers then you'll love this and it has to be said there was much laughing in the cinema where I watched it, I was actually sitting in front an entire half row of blokes and they loved every second of it, definitely a good night out for the boys. If I had any real criticism of this film I'd say the female characters were a bit weak and any observations made about the female experience only bordered on insightful but then again that didn't bother me that much because I was fairly engaged with the rest of the film. It's got flaws, find me a film that hasn't but as I understand it this was the writer and the directors first feature and with that in mind I thought Late Night Shopping was an excellent debut for both of them and I look forward to seeing whatever they do next.

I never heard about the movie when I decided to watch it. Wanted to know if I was in for a nice surprise. And i really was. I won't say the movie is a must-see, but it's a nice comedy with some original jokes. It's also an interesting look on the world that normal people always miss because they're asleep.

The persons in the movie have a nice character and there will definitely be someone you can identify yourself with. Nice story, some good jokes, surprising plot. In short: 85 minutes of your life you absolutely could have spend worse.

Most of the votes for this film are 7-10 yet most of the comments are lukewarm to hostile, which baffles me as I found it consistently enjoyable, intelligently scripted and very well acted. The only disappointment was that, although recognisably filmed in Glasgow, it appears to be set in some non-specific English city in which none-the-less all the minor characters have Scots accents. Despite this I gave it a 9.

I saw the film at the Stockholm filmfestival and i absolutely loved it. The director was there to present the film, and appologised for the misuse of music in the film, in the hilarious scene when foreiginers is on the radio in the car and impossible to shut off. The story is thin but the excellent dialog is the best thing about it. The irony and british humour is splendid, and the actor are doing a good job. + for the beautiful Sienna Guillory. To be disturbed by small things as how Vincent could know where his friends were going is a sign of a person not feeling well. Ever heard of fiction?