New Year's Day

Time Out says

A Britflick with a difference - and timely, given its concern with the angry, grief-stricken difficulties of finding anchorage in a world suddenly altered by major loss. When teenagers Jake (Potts) and Steven (Barry) wake up in an ethereal foreign ward as the only survivors of a school skiing trip disaster, they resolve to cheat fate and commit suicide in 12 months, after completing a series of tasks compiled from the video-filmed wishes of their dead friends. These are generally the black-humoured stuff of adolescent aspiration, but the pair soon raise the stakes, which puts them increasingly at odds with their counsellor and their families. It's an effective move to take a familiar youth mindset - the rebellious, death-inspired desire for liberation from conventional codes of behaviour - and situate it in a narrative where it's believably sustained as a response to crisis. But, wanting to play both as heightened realism and as parable, the film's texture is uneven and its tone is uncertain.

Author: GE