Review - This is England

This is England starts with a Non-Uniform Day, something I never expected to see in a film. Unlike Americans, we British are not used to the rituals of our school lives being shown on screen. They only get on Grange Hill, and isn’t even on the telly anymore. It is little details like this that make This is England such a joy, showing vividly what it was like to grow up in Thatcher’s Britain.

It is 1983, and 12-year-old Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) is trying to come to terms with the death of his father in the Falklands. He has no friends, and the other kids tease him about his flares and his dead dad. A chance meeting with a group of skin-heads change all that, giving him somewhere to belong, almost a new family. This new sense of security is shattered by the arrival of Combo (Stephen Graham on terrifying form), a volatile National Front supporter, straight from prison, and things get serious for Shaun very quickly. The director Shane Meadows shows how it is all too easy to get sucked into this dark world. The easy answers Combo offers are attractive to this boy that has been so disappointed by life.

This is a film full of small moments, many hilarious, and all so real; it is no surprise to learn that Meadows based it on his own experiences. With the exception of Combo, all the characters are such reasonable people (something you rarely see in films), and even he is so well-drawn that he has your sympathy. The cast of largely unknowns are wonderful, completely becoming their characters; there isn’t a second where you don’t feel you are in 1983. Turgoose is great, tough but still cute, and Jo Hartley is spot-on as his concerned mum. Joseph Gilgun as Woody, the head of the nice skin-heads, is so charming, you just want to be his best friend too. Some of the funniest scenes feature the romance between Shaun and Smell, a sort of Girl George played sweetly by Rosamund Hanson.

This is England reminds me of a sort of low-key British version of Goodfellas: it takes you from hilarity to poignancy to bursts of violence to seriousness and back in a blink of an eye, and does so seamlessly. A film full of cool clothes, cooler music, quotable lines, and realistic characters, it is ripe to become a cult classic. And it may just be my favourite British film of all time.