It's not so much a film as a visual short story this. I wasn't expecting that. It is also far, far lighter than Meadows' previous films despite the potentially heavy subject matter. This Is England's Thomas Turgoose returns as Tomo a runaway from Nottingham who befriends the teenage son of a Polish immigrant (Marek played by Piotr Jagiello) working on the Eurostar extension at St Pancras.
The film follows a few days in their life when they do nothing but somehow enjoy it the way that teenage boys do. It's a low key coming of age film. The two young leads do a great job, Turgoose is all cheeky charm and Jagiello embodies the hesitant awkwardness of an outsider. Their comical scrapes and days spent working for a local Del Boy character called Graham are given a whimsical gloss, as if viewed with nostalgia from middle-age. They both fall for a twenty-something French girl who waitresses at a local café and set about trying to jointly woo her before she departs hurriedly for France. Then they buy some cheap alcohol and get drunk at Marek's flat before Marek's Dad kicks Tomo out (he stays with Graham) and the Polish lads have a heart-to-heart about the divorce from Marek's mother. It's all nice, heartwarming stuff. Even the early scene where Tomo gets mugged is downplayed. The incident itself isn't pleasant, though Meadows doesn't show the violence directly (muggers kicking a prostrate Tomo are shown from the waist up etc), but his recovery is remarkably quick, his injuries minimal and his psyche unaffected.
It's a nice little film. I'd enjoy seeing it again. But I must remember that it's extremely insubstantial. 4/10
