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analysis w/e 14.5.11 |
DVDs out 9.5.11 |
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@ DVDfever Youtube |
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May 11 2011 
DVDfever co uk
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Producers:
Screenplay:
Music:
Cast :
As the film begins, we learn that he shares a house with his wheelchair-bound friend, Daz (Steve Evets), and his son Daniel (Michael Socha). Daz has cirrhosis of the liver and diabetes, with not a long time left to live. Inbetween working at the petrol station, Shaun looks after him as a full-time carer. They're life-long friends, but there also appears to be an element of guilt in the fact he does this. Shaun is a man who's never made much of his life - and nor has Daz, but their childhood best friend Katy (Rachael Blake) has done very well for herself, now living in the city as a bigshot lawyer with an open-top sports car and little interest in seeing either of them again as her parents confirm (her father being played in a brief role by ex-Bill star Colin Tarrant). However, he needs to tell her about Daz's condition so that's one aspect to be resolved. There's a number of flashbacks to explain how they spent their lives as teenagers (approx 16 years old - or 20 in the case of Katy, given the size of Joanna Tulej's bikini top-busting assets), and occasionally as children, as well as some bizarre but cleverly done dream/imaginary sequences as Carlyle thinks back to happier times during his best summer ever when they were teens. One dream was most striking in that it featured the teen Katy (Joanna Tulej) and present-day Shaun, and this particularly struck a chord in that it plays on the thoughts one might have that they can go back in time and just redo things that bit better and lead to an improved outcome. Of course, you have to come crashing back to reality and isn't that a total pisser? At this point I'll ignore the fact that while, in flashbacks, all three of the lead characters are portrayed as being of the same age when, in real life, Robert Carlyle was born 10 years before Rachael Blake.
That said, despite the fact that the film reaches a satisfying conclusion and answers the questions it sets out along the way, it's difficult to recommend this title as a purchase over a rental because it's like an excellent TV film without much in the way of supplemental material. There's just a trailer (1:51, anamorphic cropped to 16:9), which does give out a number of the film's key moments so, even though I've added a link above, I'd recommend you not see it prior to renting the film - which you must do immediately. Well... once you've got to the end of this review. And as long as the rental shop's still open (presuming you're using them and not an online rental service) I'll also point out one annoying thing which is where the layer change was placed - at a crucial moment as Shaun walks out of his school (41.27), since the intense moody background music is rudely interrupted. This is something that happened on my Samsung Blu-ray player, my Xbox 360's HD-DVD player, the Xbox 360 itself, but never with my original Xbox which manages to store enough in its buffer to eliminate any interruption in a layer change. That's progression in technology for you(!) The film itself is presented in anamorphic 2.35:1 widescreen and shows off excellent camerawork and frame composition. It was shot with the Super 35 format which allows for a decent 16:9 open matte print to be struck, even though the intended cinema ratio is 2.35:1, so it shouldn't suffer if it ends up getting shown on the BBC where they haven't got much of a clue about 2.35:1 films. However, the print itself is mostly quite softer than it should be and, while the Dolby Digital 5.1 gets across dialogue and ambience as intended, it's certainly not a demo disc. Thankfully, there are subtitles, which are a necessity due to the occasional use of strong Scots accents as well as some rushed words. There are just 12 chapters to the movie, which could use a few more over its 80-minute running time. Annoyingly, this is one of those DVDs which features pre-menu trailers, the names of which I'm not going to list here as we're not in the age of rental video, thankyou. These should be in the extras menu. The main menu music is the closing music, the wonderful Home in a Sentence by King Creosote, which can be viewed on the above Youtube link from when he appeared on Jools Holland's "Later". PS. I also spotted when I checked IMDB, that Robert Carlyle shares my birthday of 14th April. I'll be 37 this year (whereas he'll be 48), but I can see 40 coming towards me like a brick wall at the end of the motorway (grrr!) :)
Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2009.blog comments powered by Disqus
As of April 2009, Blu-rays and DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TH-37PX80B 37" Plasma TV with a Sony BDP-1500 Blu-ray player and played through a Yamaha DSP-AX820 amplifier. PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
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