So. I'm going to be honest and say the only reason i'm here is because I'm about to build wine for the third time today... last time took over two hours but man, if there's any way Portal 2 will run on my laptop, i'm going to make it happen. I'm just past 12 hours of trying...
So during the last two hour build I watched Kidulthood. I knew Mark Kermode had said good things about it and i knew it was written by Noel Clarke when he was pretty young (it came out when he was 21 ish)
I've now partially ruined it for myself by reading a times review which was pretty down on the actual themes of the film but I'll plough on and discuss that later.
I didn't expect to enjoy it. I generally can't stand to watch bad things happen to children, and I don't feel any understanding for the kind of bleak inner city life they're depicting here. The film, however, was a rollercoaster ride that had me shouting at the screen and laughing out loud at intervals.
The acting was incredibly good for the most part. I felt kind of taken out of it when Alisa or Trife got thinking about the serious things in life: it was as if their inner aspiration to better things made them strangely too eloquent, or eloquent in a different way to the patter they use from the start of the film. Having said that, it was the right decision as I would perhaps have cringed more to hear them lamely express their desire within the confines of that patter.
Also the two girls who have to cry clearly can't do so very well on camera, but that's the sum total of the lapses from a really excellent cast.
This is a fairly low budget work - 500k to make. For that the makers have done a great job. There is a polished feel to it that doesn't exhibit any financial constraints.
So for my part I loved it. The story clipped along. The style of ending was to some extent predictable but not quite the details and although it could be viewed as pushing the moral of the story in a heavy handed way, the final scene is barely more than 5 minutes long so to my mind nothing is overdone.
As I said before the review in the times had me wondering whether I was giving the film too much credit. Actually I think the reviewer didn't give the film enough credit. Maybe the press around the film was such that this work would right wrongs and show the world how inner city life is. If that's the case then, yeah, the ending is neat and predictable and the shocks come too fast and too conveniently (if all teenagers did that much damage on their day off, civilisation would end during the 6-week summer break.) But I feel like his criticism is only for how it's not going to change the world, with little bad to say about it as a piece of entertainment. Indeed he applauds the film itself, while letting the tone of the article be negative.
As a film to watch it's unsettling, exciting, somewhat intriguing and has the good sense to be less than 90 mins long. Nuff said.
