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Chris Atkins
84 mins
Synopsis
A teenager suffering the painful ministrations of his social-climbing father; a lugubrious driving instructor with the hopes and dreams of his young charges on his shoulders; a young woman preparing an anniversary dinner for her partner, only for his best friend to turn up in his place. It takes only a few scenes for the audience to realise nothing is quite what it seems in each of these stories and as the characters’ journeys start to overlap both literally and thematically, the twists start coming thick and fast. Things are not necessarily worse than initially presented; for some characters, they are differently awful and for others, surprisingly more optimistic. Expectations are subverted as the story eschews the most likely outcomes, opting instead for the outrageous or the emotionally and visually arresting. As the stories mesh, the narrative cogs drive the film forward, not letting your attention wander for a moment with quick fire alternation between scenes both comic and serious – all dramatic.
I was uneasy a lot of the time, conscious that my life was passing by, and here was I watching a film on my computer screen at 10.30 in the morning. But I went on sitting there, still and staring, because I had to know how this cleverly written film resolves itself, and I defy anyone to turn it off unfinished. There is one scene three quarters of the way through that engages one with a hideous truth; one is aghast at the ramifications of a particular event; one longs for some warmth and a decent resolution, and one is rewarded to some extent, not least because two of the characters, excellently played by Norman Lovett and Tamara Ustinov, do succeed in eliciting one’s sympathy, and that is very important in a film containing deep shades of human unpleasantness. It is very much an actors’ film, and I was delighted that the credits proceeded at a leisurely pace. I look forward to Chris Atkins next effort.