Everything

Little heard of  since his screenplay for ‘The Theory of Flight’,  writer-director Richard Hawkins shows great promise in this downbeat psychological thriller  debut.  Ray Winstone  plays heavy-breathing  punter Richard, who visits Jan Graveson’s platinum blonde Soho prostitute Naomi just to talk; he returns daily, the tension and the price-tag rising as his questions become ever more delving. Hawkins holds tight on  the dangerous  psychosexual fencing match between hooker and client,  intimating by degrees the complex shading of their relationship from the professional into the personal.  The question is, what is this guy’s  fucking problem?
True, the scenario is overfamiliar  and tends to the voyeuristic, and the hand-held camerawork is  occasionally clumsy – those overemphatic  jump-zooms in particular. But the performances are terrific – Winstone  is at his downbeat best, but ex-‘EastEnders’ regular  Graveson is a revelation, subtle  and entirely credible – and the direction is keen and beautifully tempered.  Winstone sings a lovely version of Blur’s ‘Tender’ over the end credits.