Awaydays

The memory of ‘This is England’ hangs over this adaptation of Kevin Sampson’s novel ‘Awaydays’. Again, it’s a period story of a young man’s initiation into a gang of thugs – this time football hooligans in 1979 – who seek solidarity and identity through music and fashion. The slo-mo scenes of lads marching towards the camera to music, all of them oozing pride and brandishing Adidas raincoats and trainers, could be straight from Shane Meadows’s film, not least because Stephen Graham is back as an older, influential leader of the pack.

But while the group dynamics have a pleasing swagger to them and ‘Awaydays’ is more concerned with character than knuckle-headed hooligan films like ‘The Football Factory’, the film falls down in its effort to make credible the background stories of its well-performed lead characters, Carty (Nicky Bell) and Elvis (Liam Boyle), one a suburban boy looking for working-class thrills, the other an alienated romantic confused about his sexuality. It’s also hard to ignore the shoddy acting in some of the smaller roles and cinematography that is unforgivably murky.