Junk (1999) (TV)

Director:

Marcus D.F. White

Writers:

Melvin Burgess (novel)
Barry Purchese (writer)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Tar and Gemma, 14-year-olds, run away to Bristol, but soon become involved in drugs and prostitution. |

Plot Keywords:

Prostitution | Drugs | Runaway | Teen | Based On Novel

Awards:

1 win

Cast

Trevor Byfield	...	Skolly
Ben Cato	...	Junky
Anita Dobson	...	Mrs Lawson
Marcelle Duprey	...	Lily
Lee Ingleby	...	Rob
David Mallinson	...	Mr Lawson
Daniel Newman	...	Tar Lawson
Susan Penhaligon	...	Mrs Brogan
Jemima Rooper	...	Gemma Brogan
David Schofield	...	Mr Brogan
Joe Shaw	...	Jerry
Katryna Thomas-Shell	...	Vonny

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Filming Locations:

Barleywood, Wrington, Somerset, England, UK

Quotes:

Gemma Brogan: I'm really looking forward to being clean again. It's this weird thing with smack. First off it makes you feel so good. But after a bit, after your body gets used to it, it stops working like that. You start needing it just to stay normal... Then you get sick of it and give it up for a few days. And that's the really nasty thing because then, when you're clean, that's when it works so well.

It's "The Famous Five Turn to a Life of Drugs And Prostitution"

"The Famous Five Turn to a Life of Drugs And Prostitution". Would you let your child read that? No. Would you want to read that? Probably not. That is just the first of numerous arguments that make this film a nonsense. Believe it or not, this film was first made with the intention of being a three part drama for children! You can tell when you get to the final third of the film that they realised that it would, and quite rightly, never be allowed to be screened as a children's program as the gratuitous four letter words start creeping in. This is one of the token gestures that goes towards trying to turn this into an adult movie. So after that, it's a children's program that children can't watch because of the content and adults will find tedious because, well, it's a children's program. Only the BBC could be stupid enough to commission a film for a target audience that doesn't exist.

The second thing that runs against this film is that the story is that of the far superior Trainspotting. It's just chopped up and moved around a bit. Now I'm not against recycling story lines as long as the style of the film is changed to make it sufficiently original, neither am I against the copying of styles. But I was under the impression that copying both the story and style from the same film is not the thing to do. In fact, I thought that was considered to be ripping off the other film in which case the makers of Trainspotting must be seething, not only at the fact that their film was copied but at the fact that they managed to make such a mess of it. Junk can't be as good because where Trainspotting takes you inside the lives and minds of the characters involved, Junk can only take you so far and then your mind has to get out and walk the rest of the way because you are not allowed to show teenagers doing certain things that people do when they're on drugs.

Junk, I'm afraid, has got it all wrong. You can't entertain adults with a children's story and you can't entertain children with adult content. The only thing they did get right is the film's title which just about sums it up. Just about, that is, because there are other four letter words that would much more accurately sum up this diabolical nonsesne but I can't use them or the review wont get posted.