The Scouting Book for Boys

I remember hearing about this film when it came out, as I recall, it got a pretty good reception. On the strength of this I decided to give it a viewing. It's quite hard to put down in words the feelings that are brought forth by this British made coming of age tale of love and loss. This one can really get to you if you're in the mood for it. I thought it was very good and that the young actors involved were really excellent.

Emily and David are teenagers, they both live at a caravan park on the Norfolk (England) coast. They are like brother and sister, inseparable. One day Emily hears that she is going to have to go and live with her father. This changes everything for David, his feelings for her may run deeper than he is prepared to admit. The following day Emily disappears and David is the first one they call on to find out where she is. Of course he denies all knowledge and they focus on Steve, the security guard at the park. Little do they know that David and Emily have hatched a plan to hide her so she doesn't have to go and live with her father. Unfortunately things don't go according to plan and, as time passes, David finds out things about Emily that he wishes he didn't know. I can't tell you what it is as I don't want to spoil it for you.

There are some great songs in the soundtrack from the band 'Noah and the Whale', and a nice score by Jack C. Arnold. It's a very well made film with some really nice cinematography. I particularly liked the use of close-ups. As I said earlier, the two young actors involved are truly excellent. Holliday Grainger as Emily is every bit the young teenage tom-boy she portrays and Thomas Turgoose does an excellent job as the love-lorne David. Also, an honourable mention goes to Rafe Spall as Steve.

I really liked this film. It has a very measured style that gently takes you along the path of this bittersweet tale. It's unmistakably English and I think it works better for that, playing on your emotions right up until the rather tragic ending. It's not perfect, the pacing seems a little bit off in places and I felt that some of the characters were a little bit too larger than life, but over all, I liked it. So, if you're prepared for a bit of an emotional ride with a couple of great performances in a very well shot film, then I can definitely recommend this one to you.

My Score: 7.3/10

I'm not comparing the movies here (haven't yet seen the either Kidulthood nor Adulthood), but saying that there is a coming of Age story here. More or less that is, because it could actually also be described as a trip into human psyche and what lies in everyone of us(?). It goes back to the saying "If you love something ..."

But what makes this exceptional, are the actors. It is rarely that you see actors that young being that good. You might have seen the boy in other English movies (he has done quite a few things), but I hadn't seen the girl before. And she is really good. Of course the story holds your attention from start to finish which is a good thing too. A dark drama that might just be your cup of tea

Film4 have been showing " The British Connection " which is a euphemistic title for British made film productions devoid of American funding . While this might be well and good to a degree what it does is show up the fault of British film making:producing films that are unable to shake off the feeling that they're television productions rather cinematic ones and sharing the same visual style

THE SCOUTING BOOK FOR BOYS is a case in point . This was shown immediately after Shane Meadow's ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE MIDLANDS and you'd be forgiven for thinking both films share the same director . Much of this is down to the cinematography where everything is brightly lit the colour yellow is rather prominent . In fact many of the films being shown such as LAYER CAKE and KILL LIST also have this visual look ( Though Matthew Vaughn style did make LAYER CAKE cinematic ) which led me to believe the same cinematographer was responsible for all the movies featured. I was shocked to learn this was not the case

There's also a similar type of feel to the narrative . It's poignant , bitter-sweet and not entirely plausible . At the risk of sounding repetitive while reviewing these type of Brit flicks I was reminded of these PLAY FOR TODAY that were getting broadcast on a weekly basis by the BBC in the 1970s . Unsurprisingly both the director and screenwriter have a background in television

In that case I won't be too critical because there does seem to be an element of the film being produced as a cinematic calling card by the director and obviously the budget is always going to be a worry in this type of production . That said there needs to be something stronger in order to grab the audience having a conveyor belt of British movies being broadcast on a channel means any viewer with a brain will quickly notice how similar contemporary films from this country are

'The Scouting Book for Boys' tells the story of a teenage boy who helps a girl he fancies run away from home. Ultimately, the unidirectionality of that relationship is to have dire consequences. In many ways, it reminded me of the sort of novels I used to write: the problem is, my novels weren't very good. So you have a naive protagonist; conflicts of interest at first hidden or ignored, later painfully apparent; stylised minor characters who ultimately seem more like the embodiment of ideas rather than real flesh and blood; and a plot that makes sense in outline but doesn't quite hold up in practice, in part because the protagonists seem to be stretched to fulfil its demands, instead of the story feeling like the entirely natural consequence of who the protagonists are. The film is set in north Norfolk: an attractive coast, but I didn't get a profound sense of place from how this movie is shot. The reliably excellent Thomas Turgoose does what he can with the material, but is limited by the lack of depth in the story. In fact, this isn't an awful movie; but it feels like a first time effort, and less than the potential sum of its parts.

So who was she, the girl you desperately tried to convince yourself was more like the sister you never had? The one who locked you in the toy box of her heart like some dependable old teddy with a glassy stare and a permanently knitted frown, as she parcelled out her favours in front of you? For David (Thomas Turgoose), being that "brotherly" best friend to Emily (Holly Grainger), a girl he's known all his life, just won't cut it anymore. Focusing on adolescent urges turned jealous, possessive and cancerous, The Scouting Book For Boys describes a day-glo dream plummeting into nightmare.

As it opens, the teenage pals are depicted at their Norfolk coastal resort leaping between rows of caravan roofs at sunset: a gorgeously photographed shot perfectly encapsulating the giddy rush and risks of youth. For now, everything is ice creams and waterslides, sunshine and sherbet. There's even that Noah and the frickin' Whale hit on the soundtrack, and you can't get sunnier than that. Then things start turning crap: when an unwilling Emily is packed off to live with her divorcée dad, David helps her hide out in a cave on the beach. ('How to hide yourself' being a section in Baden-Powell's near-eponymous handbook.) But Emily's motives for lying low are more complicated than David imagines. And when the truth is uncovered, the film takes a lurching left turn into Hell-by-the-Sea.

Director Tom Harper and writer Jack Thorne (Skins) have both dealt with wayward adolescence before, and have proved extremely skilled at getting inside those scheming little brains. If the film's adult characters behave like dangerously overgrown children, the kids think they're grown-ups way before their time. Wearing an expression like a bruised knee, Turgoose continues to build on a diminutive but hugely impressive CV; while Grainger, playing slightly younger than her actual age, and sharing superb chemistry with her co-star, is just brilliant: equal parts girlish, manipulative and naïve. Like its protagonists, this is capricious, nuanced drama; just when you think you've a handle on it, it twists out of reach like a flipping fish. Catch it.