This film's brilliance lies in its overlaying scrupulous dreary Ken Loach-style urban social realism, with the transcendent Powellian rhythms of its young protagonist's head, making romantic and mysterious the squalid and banal. The opening credits, the drowning, the rubbish-strewn streets, the bus journey , the wandering through the unfinished house and meadows are set-pieces of staggering emotional beauty, as are the intimations throughout of the supernatural and horror. It is a shame, therefore, that director Ramsey should strain for laboured epiphanies and unconvincing Surrealist appendages.
Review of Ratcatcher
