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Somers Town (2008)

Director: Shane Meadows

Time Out rating

Average user rating

17 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Shane Meadows is a British filmmaker with no equivalent. At 35, he has five features and a host of shorts behind him. What’s striking about this Midlands storyteller is that he is able to explore the comic and tragic absurdities of small-town life in a populist, invigorating fashion, moving with swagger and ease from laughs to tears and back again. He is good, too, at extracting performances from youngsters. Brotherly friendships are at the heart of his films, including this latest, which, owing to its slight knockabout feel and running time of barely more than an hour, should really be considered his fifth-and-a-half.

Shot in black and white, ‘Somers Town’ is a slim whippet of a film that is set in the nether regions of King’s Cross and follows a friendship between two teenagers: Marek (Piotr Jagiello) is the son of a Polish builder working on the Eurostar and Tomo (Thomas Turgoose) is a lippy, vulnerable kid who arrives from the North with nowhere to stay. They meet in a café and bond over their admiration for a French waitress (Elisa Lasowski). They hang about the streets, nick clothes from launderettes and do wide jobs for a local odd boy.

Their exploits are as charming as they are casual; some of the film’s strongest moments are sequences that simply show us the fabric of this neck of the woods, set to a yearning acoustic soundtrack. There are some laughs – but the jokes don’t come thick and fast. The film’s portrayal of friendship is always warm and sensitive.

Meadows’s filmmaking has always verged on the scrappy, which isn’t surprising for a filmmaker who cut his teeth swinging a video camera around his neighbourhood. The rough edges give his films their identity. The same is true here, but ‘Somers Town’ is the first of his films to be made away from home turf and you can feel the awkwardness of this dislocation: an encounter between Tomo and local lads doesn’t ring true and the coincidence of Tomo bumping into the same woman twice rubs against a realistic portrayal of the city.

The film began in a boardroom: Eurostar initiated the film as a novel approach to marketing. It sometimes shows. But one shouldn’t get too hung up on the finances. Since when were most films not tied up in a complex network of capital? Here the product placement is more amusing than sinister. That said, you may want to close your eyes when the film lunges from black and white to grainy colour for a brief, upbeat Paris-set epilogue, complete with shots of the Eiffel Tower. It says something of the film as a whole: lovely in parts, hard to love in others.

Author: Dave Calhoun 2008-08-19 10:16:49

Time Out London Issue 1983, 21-27th August 2008

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User reviews of this film

rodge said...

Posted on Nov 01 2009 22:54 Pretty poor. The acting was OK but the script and the directing were just dire. Why so many people involved when it looked like it could've been thrown together by one man and his cam order. Utterly unbelievable relationship between Tomo and the French girl. On a positive I thought the music was terrific well done to them, my single star goes to them. Sorry Shane

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waste o0f time said...

Posted on Mar 23 2009 12:51 a waste of an hour

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do not watch said...

Posted on Mar 23 2009 10:24 jacking off in the bath, fat man pulling change out of his thong, cross dressing, doing a poo in plasic bag, some fat kid stripping off and its in black and white. Its as bad as an advert for praising the nazi campaign. I would rather burn my eyes out with a blowtorch than watch this again.

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this is rubbish said...

Posted on Mar 23 2009 10:17 worst film ever. its as bad as the flight of the red balloon, i pity you if you have to waste a hour of your life to watch this.

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James said...

Posted on Feb 08 2009 02:59 OK, here's the thing...Dead Mans Shoes and This is England are two of the best films I have seen for years. And Why? Well, they take classic revenge thriller, which is what they are, but very well well develop this within a wider framework. great shows, however, shane meadows should be ashamed of himslef after somers town, honestly awful...

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Shaun said...

Posted on Jan 15 2009 13:09 I really enjoyed it, well acted, lovely characters not as gritty as some of Meadows other work, but some really nice observations on life in the big city for the first time, a must see in my book.......Shane rules..!!

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Calum said...

Posted on Dec 29 2008 16:49 I do find it astonishing that this film has had such poor reviews. For me it was the most enjoyable film of 2008- warm, witty,and characterful. It was not entirely realistic, and it came close to sentimental, but it just avoids this by the pithiness and earthiness of the characters and locale. It is a simple and unpretentious piece which captivates.

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Gary Byrne said...

Posted on Sep 20 2008 15:25 Another load of bollocks

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peleparso said...

Posted on Sep 15 2008 20:21 A brilliant 60+mins of film. Turgoose is utterly compelling and has a natural talent for comedy. A gentle film that doesn't try to fit into the orthodox films-must-look-like-this box and for that should be applauded.
Some of the other reviewers here should stick to their idiotic multiplex dross.

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ken edwards said...

Posted on Aug 27 2008 16:37 OK as far as it went. But it didn't go very far! Not entertaining.

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Ken Edwards said...

Posted on Aug 27 2008 16:36 OK as far as i went. But it didn't go very far!!

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Ted said...

Posted on Aug 26 2008 13:41 A hugely disappointing film that went nowhere. Too many cliches and very disjointed. The end scene was unbelievable as was the French girls involvement. Quite frankly I was relieved it only went on for 70 minutes, the end could not come quick enough. Save your money, it's not worth seeing.

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Madison said...

Posted on Aug 23 2008 15:57 Not as good as This is England but funny and endearing none the less. The script is a little unfocused due to the reliance on the young performers improvisation and there is not much character insight as a result. Nevertheless it ambles along pleasantly enough. worth seeing

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Madison said...

Posted on Aug 23 2008 15:57 Not as good as This is England but funny and endearing none the less. The script is a little unfocused due to the reliance on the young performers improvisation and there is not much character insight as a result. Nevertheless it ambles along pleasantly enough. worth seeing

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PERFECTDAY said...

Posted on Aug 22 2008 19:40 Tedious. walked out after one hour. the script would not look out of place in a bargain bucket in a boot sale.

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