Somers Town

Shane Meadows has quietly established himself as one of the finest directors working today. It's a bold statement, but if you haven't go see Dead Man's Shoes, This Is England and Room For Romeo Brass, and you should agree. Well now comes Somers Town, a strange companion piece to This Is England. Whereas that film was a ferocious study on the social climate of England in the Eighties, Somers Town is a gentle insight into multicultural Britain in the present day.

The film follows Tomo, who has decided to run away from his home in Nottingham. He arrives in the titular Somers Town and befriends a Polish immigrant called Marek. They muck about and attempt to chat up a local French waitress. That's pretty much it. There are some sub-plots about Marek's father and the local entrepreneur Graham who uses the boys for some cheap labour, but Somers Town isn't about plot.

Much like the European Neo-realist films that have obviously influenced it (why else shoot the majority of it in black and white?) Somers Town is more interested in the world it is set in and the characters who inhabit it. In that sense it's similar to The Bicycle Thieves, or as it was famously described, a film about a father and son going for a walk around Rome (I'm paraphrasing of course). Through this style the society is then commented on, not through bludgeoning imagery such as the like seen in This Is England, but rather through subtle means, such as the Graham subplot/metaphor or in the scene where the boys taxi Maria home in a discarded wheelchair. This is a classic example of the Neo-realist aesthetic at work. The sequence lasts nearly five minutes and barely, if at all, moves the plot forward. Rather the viewer is asked to drink in the scenery, bleak as it is, as they walk.

Thankfully though this is not a film full of doom and gloom. Rather it's sweet, charming and at times hilarious. Witness Graham gifting Marek an Arsenal shirt that reads 'Terry Henry' on the back, or Tomo's attempts at finding new clothes when a misplaced Biro destroys his only tracksuit. It's these little details that impress and show that Meadows put a lot of thought into his shots, rather than go the more typical realist improvised framing. Great examples include the placing of signs, such as 'Meet Me' above Tomo at the train station, or the 'Children Should Not Play' one on the side of their close.

Somers Town won't be for everyone. Ultimately it's actually quite saccharine in tone, and the ending is far from what you'd expect if you're a fan of the 1940's Italian version of this thing. It doesn't suggest for a second that these people's lives are easy, but it makes a plea that no matter where we are from, we're all in it together, so we should all just get along. Let's be honest, with so little actually happening in life it's probably the only way we can cope. Awww. Well compared to most British output, Danny Boyle and Edgar Wright aside, it's actually quite refreshing to see a realistic portrayal of Britain that doesn't paint us all as miserable alcoholics looking to kill one another. Then again, maybe this is actually a fantasy film.