Director:Â Helen Walsh
Cast: Lauren McQueen,  Brogan Ellis,  Stephen Lord,  Liam Ainsworth,  Derek Barr,  Callum King Chadwick,  Jennifer Hennessey, Roxanne Pallett,  Harry Evans,  Jacqueline Leonard
Rating: 15
Running Time:Â 100 mins
Release Date:Â 17/06/2016
It is always a worthwhile experience when you watch a film that you have little knowledge of before you go in that by the end of it announces itself as something more significant. I certainly have had my fair share of pleasant surprises, although in the case of the movie I am about to divulge an impression about, pleasant might not be the right word given the world the characters inhabit.
The title alone is a left-field one and one which might mislead you into thinking this is a futuristic high-tech film like THE TERMINATOR and TRANCERS, but Helen Walsh has concocted one of the most insightful and searing youth dramas which is up there with the likes of A CLOCKWORK ORANGE and HEAVENLY CREATURES with her feature THE VIOLATORS.
Like Kate Jarvis in Andrea Arnold’s FISH TANK, a super new British talent to watch has been uncovered in Lauren McQueen in the film’s central role as Shelly Hudson. Not dissimilar in impact to Odessa Young in the recent Australian release THE DAUGHTER (highly recommended), McQueen captures the emotional curve of a young girl torn between her predicament and her desire to protect her urban family from the past tragedies.
In this disenfranchised world, set on a Cheshire council estate, where pawning and broken dreams are the norm, Shelly lives with her two half-brothers and gets her kicks from selling stolen trinkets to local pawn-shop owner Mikey Finnegan (Stephen Lord, a slow-burner dynamo of a performance), who develops more than a professional interest in her. Soon,she meets Rachel (Brogan Ellis) who offers her clothes and complimentary meals at a local restaurant for kicks – and someone who appears to know a little more about her than at first glance…
There is so much meat on the bone in this drama, which encapsulates the essence of British youth dysfunction above and beyond that expected in some street-wise dramas. Like the very best British cultural moments, like QUADROPHENIA and the aforementioned A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, the film offers depth and belief. Walsh encapsulates the emotional core of the female leads, as well as offering a very gritty but sensitively handled realism to key sequences that in the hands of a male helm might have been seen as more voyeuristic. Strong language and visuals are on view in this film, which pulls no punches.
Brogan Ellis as the calculating Rachel, herself a character beleaguered by cross-purposes, is impressive and the young Callum King Chadwick offers admirable instinct as the younger half-brother Jerome, but first and foremost this is McQueen’s film, an attractive young actress with a bright future and I am sure some great future performances.
One of the best and most telling British film experiences of 2016. Walsh is a talent to watch.
Verdict
