Saturday, October 5, 2013

Somers Town



Somers Town Movie Review
Somers Town (2008) is fresh and lighthearted coming of age story that has real-life charm and drama. It is serious yet fun look at growing up. The people you meet and the situations you get into, as well as your dreams, truly shape who you are. Being filmed in black and white gives it a clean feel that enables you to focus on the events and characters without distraction. The original music by Gaven Clark is refreshing and perfectly fits the style of the film.

Tomo (Thomas Turgoose) has just arrived by train in the Somers Town area of London after leaving his hometown of Nottingham. He is an extremely open and chatty young man that befriends a lady, Jane, on the train. Meanwhile, Marek (Piotr Jagiello) is walking with his dad (Ireneusz Czop) to his job where he is working on a new track for the train. Marek goes off on the town taking photographs along the way. That evening Marek and his dad head home for some diner that Marek cooks up in their cramped kitchen. They enjoy...

Of Europe unified
A well-behaving catholic teen son of a Polish migrant slavering in London (none pushed him there, of course, just an ex-wife attempt to save a family by starting a life completely different) met and brought home a local homeless offspring to furthe rembrace England's culture by selling home goods to drink, snore and masturbate in a bath pool.

However, his strong father kicks out a tenant unwelcomed, suggests to newly wed and guys travel to Paris to reunite with their sweet-heart Maria they kissed in the UK already.

Eventually, it is a pre-sequence to The Dreamers with correlation on further European Union's developments.

Winning small film, bleak but engaging
3.8 stars

I enjoy the Film Movement concept, and this is another small, low-budget movie worth a view for fans of this sort of coming of age flick. The two leads are solid, the film shot in pleasingly grainy black and white until near the end, and it's a sleek 70 minutes. The story and locale are both pretty bleak, featuring council block flats and that sort of Dickensian feel that London delivers so well. But there are rays of light, not only in the central friendship but, somewhat uniquely, in the single father and his son's connection, which is both realistic and free from the standard tropes. No beatings or abuse, just two guys trying to understand each other with respect. Very nice.

Some decent humor, plenty of quiet irony, and an oddly pleasant dour feel make this worth watching for fans of smaller, mellow character studies.

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