Broadcast on UK terrestrial TV for the first time last weekend, in the early hours of the morning, *My Brother Tom* sums up where the ailing FilmFour went wrong: while admirably uncompromising, the film manages to be both histrionic and flat at the same time, its depiction of doomed teens in perverted suburbia ratcheted to pure absurdity and never managing to convey any greater purpose other than to be grim for the same of it. It's no surprise that the film was virtually ignored on its cinema release - who were its intended audience? The saving graces are the fabulously committed lead performances, particularly Ben Whishaw as 'Tom'. Unsurprisingly, the film has led to better things for him: it's easy to see why Trevor Nunn picked him to play a young Hamlet on the London stage recently.
Review of My Brother Tom
