Review of Somers Town

Shane Meadows is undoubtedly a filmmaker of immense talent capable of producing powerful movies but he seems to have wandered off the path a little here and seems a little bemused by the distractions he has stumbled upon. This story of the unlikely friendship between a working class Nottingham lad and the son of a Polish labourer in London contains only the most cursory of plots, and as the film unfolds the suspicion grows that, even at little more than an hour long, there's a little too much padding here. There are two musical montages - one, in colour, which may be a dream or wish-fulfilment sequence - and a sub-plot about the relationship between Marek and his hard-drinking father that goes nowhere.

Lack of a storyline isn't necessarily a bad thing (and despite the negative tone of this review Somers Town isn't a bad film), but if a filmmaker is going to rely on observation in a character-driven tale then those characters have to be interesting. The youngsters give decent performances - especially Thomas Turgoose, who also appeared in Meadows' This Is England, and the director's eye for detail means that the film doesn't feel boring, but once it's over you're left wondering what the point was - and the significance (or wisdom) of having Turgoose's character ending up wearing a dress and dusting knick-knacks like a midget housewife near the film's conclusion.