I really had low expectations of this, if only because I’d kind of got a tad excited about saving it actually for Mischief Night, lol (usually, the night entirely passes me by – if I even remember it exists, I usually find myself at the end of November asking people when it is, only to find, of course, that I’ve missed it lol). But right from the start, this one had me beaming. It’s one of those movies that just strikes me as beautifully real.

When it first came out, I somehow got the impression it was a much more technically kid-friendly movie. Not a kid movie, but at least suitable for them according to the censors. So I was surprised earlier to find that FilmFour had had the same idea as me and were going to show it tonight, albeit at the seemingly odd time of 11:30pm. Now I’ve seen it, I guess I get it – there are f-bombs and drugs and guns in this movie that explain the ‘15’ certificate and the late screening time – but I still have to say, I think most children in their double figures would benefit from seeing the movie. Like Thirteen (which was even more ridiculously rated ‘18’ here), it’s a movie that confronts the realities of certain pockets of youth in certain corners of the world, and to not acknowledge that and let them see themselves in the hideous mirror of the cinema screen is really just as bad as enticing innocents to such behaviour. It addresses race issues in an utterly non-binary way – the narrator freely, if practically innocently, using the word “pakki” to describe her Asian neighbours, taking a general prejudicial stance against most of them, while feeling completely at home with the handsome Immie and knowing the father of her daughter was of the same descent – which I think is a much saner way of redressing any imbalance of equality; where most other movies would simply turn the tables, this one merely rearranges them.

There are images in this movie – a baby on the kitchen floor holding a bottle of bleach, children with a gun, children in a street where a “nonce” supposedly lives – that could be shown in any number of other movies and not really put you on edge as much as they should because the boundaries are already laid out and you know how far those movies will go and how they’ll end. But if you set up a world as real as this one does, such things, for me at least, really have power because you really don’t know where it’s going to go. The movie is mostly lighthearted – the actual Mischief Night sequence at the end is as hilarious as you want it to be – but because of how real the base is, you never know when something rotten might happen, or even how rotten it might be when it does. Perhaps there, in fact, could be where the high rating almost comes in handy?

It’s beautifully shot, and the performances by the actors are uniformly as real as everything else to behold. It only takes one duff school play-ish performance to spoil a movie like this, and there really isn’t anyone, not even on the silent sidelines, who doesn’t feel completely real here. I really loved this movie and could even make it an annual thing.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 4th, 2007 at 8:52 pm and is filed under 5 hearts, Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.