Glittering Surprises

However, while Brighton Rock was the festival’s official Surprise Film (being met by very mixed reviews), the unexpected pleasures derived from less heralded titles are a big part of any festival and the LFF was no exception. Take Treacle Jr, for example, a low-budget Brit flick by director Jamie Thraves. When Tom (played by Tom Fisher) walks out on his seemingly happy life in the Midlands with his wife and child, boards a train to London, ditches his credit cards and elects to sleep rough on the streets of the capital, the viewer would be forgiven for thinking the next 85 minutes will be an exploration of why he’s chosen such a drastic course of action. Instead, we follow his misadventures with gobby misfit Aidan (Aidan Gillen) and Aidan’s violent girlfriend Linda (Riann Steele).

Gillen’s balls-to-the-floor performance is a revelation to anyone who knows this normally guarded actor from his roles in The Wire or Queer As Folk. Aidan is like a naïve, Sarf London-based Ratso Rizzo and, while Tom is a million miles away from Midnight Cowboy’s Joe Buck, this odd couple’s fragile, dysfunctional friendship touches on some of that film’s same themes of dependence and alienation.

Other pleasant surprises included: Everything Must Go – no Short Cuts, but still an accomplished adaptation of a Raymond Carver short story that added further evidence to the theory Will Ferrell (like Adam Sandler) is a good dramatic actor trapped in the body of an irritating comedian; Bertrand Tavernier’s The Princess Of Montpensier – a costume drama that pulled off the difficult task of making 16th Century political intrigue interesting and relevant to the modern age; End Of Animal – an understated, chamber-style Korean apocalypse movie that had more emotional impact than a dozen symphonically blustering 2012s; Africa United – the South African World Cup dream was the backdrop for this uplifting Dark Continent road movie, which never shirked from dealing with Africa’s considerable problems yet had the irresistible momentum of a Didier Drogba dive; and William S Burroughs: A Man Within – a documentary that did justice to the complex life of the American novelist/poet/essayist.

One can only hope that these films – and the LFF’s other hidden gems – will make it into UK cinemas in the months to come.

Colin Houlson

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