Somers Town

After the personal triumphs that were the award-winning Dead Mans Shoes and This Is England, the initial announcements concerning Somers Town were met with a degree of consternation by fans of Shane Meadows. Why was the most acclaimed young filmmaker in the country making a film for Eurostar and an advertising agency? Is it really that hard to acquire financing? Had our greatest hope for the future sold out his principles? I am happy to report that this couldn’t be further from the truth, as Somers Town is another triumph from start to finish and a fine addition to a body of work currently unrivalled throughout British cinema.

The tale of two friends, Tommo (Thomas Turgoose) who has run away from the Midlands to start a new life in London, and Marek (Piotr Jagiello), a Polish immigrant living with his father, this is a life-affirming and inspirational piece of cinema, beautifully rendered in black-and-white and played out with all the wit, compassion and conviction that one would expect from a Shane Meadows film.

On the surface this is standard Meadows fare, as Thomas Turgoose, the breakout star of This Is England returns for another tale of adolescence, friendship, and misguided masculinity. What makes Somers Town unique though is it displays a softer side rarely seen before in his films. Forget the harrowing denouements of his previous movies, if you shed any tears upon leaving Somers Town they will be tears of joy over Tommo and Marek and the glorious summer when they both came into each other’s lives.

With this marvellous film, Meadows has taken another stride to becoming the English Martin Scorsese, a chronicler of the hopes and dreams of disenfranchised men throughout the land and a surveyor of urban alienation. In a perfect world he would be awarded a genius grant by our Government and would never have to struggle to get a film made ever again. Sadly this isn’t a perfect world, but on this sort of form, I don’t care if his next film is a joint collaboration between Coca-Cola, Nestle and Nike, I’ll be in the queue on opening day.

Director: Shane Meadows
Starring: Piotr Jagiello, Thomas Turgoose, Ireneusz Czop, Elisa Lasowski, Perry Benson, Kate Dickie
Certificate: 12A
Runtime: 71 minutes (approx)
Release date: 22nd August 2008
http://www.somers-town.com/

 Matthew Kleebauer