This is England (2007)
Dir/Written: Shane Meadows
This is a moving film, aided by a well-written script and superb performances from the entire cast. The backdrop of dreary eighties scenery is a fine contrast against the lively Ska music of the time and is reminiscent for all who were there. A young boy, Shaun (Thomas Turgoose), falls in with an older crowd after being bullied at school. There are joyful moments such as when they give him his first skinhead haircut and his mother doesn’t seem to mind that the new friends are twice his age. Joseph Gilgun plays a likeable lead figure for the group, but is soon overshadowed by the menacing Combo, played brilliantly by Stephen Graham. Combo has returned from prison with far-right views and is prepared to back those views up with action. Soon young Shaun is hanging around with the more aggressive Combo and his friends of the same ilk. This is a thought-provoking movie with an all-too predictable ending but is well worth watching.
Two things don’t quite make sense - why Shaun is in a relationship with a much older female, or why Milky, (Andrew Shim), doesn’t notice that he is the one man of an ethnic background surrounded by a nationalist group of skinheads, much to his detriment.
Well as my mum said wistfully, “that was the eighties, anything went, people didn’t mind”, whatever that means..