Saw this at a press screening today at EIFF. While I wanted to like it, and expected great (or at least 'good') things, I was disappointed.
The press kit informs that the film cost only £41,000 to make, and boy does it show. Camera work is amateur, the feeble 'jazz-lite' soundtrack jars in and out of the consciousness (the same guy who wrote the s/t to 'Gregory's Girl' was on board, and appears to have re-recorded his work for consumption here) while a couple of the other incidental tracks were bad, bad, bad.
Plot so thin it verges on the anorexic and that takes us to... the performances. Some good. Some very good, in fact. Some not so good and some others, naming no names, bloody awful.
The constant nods to Scottish films of far more illustrious stock (the aforementioned Gregory's Girl, Trainspotting, Local Hero, Restless Natives, etc.) are extraneous and annoying; it's as if this film wants a little bit of the stardust to rub off here. Not going to happen.
Like I say, I wanted to like this. Despite being English I have spent the majority of my life north of the Border and know what Scottish cinema is capable of. It's capable of much better than this.
The press kit informs that the film cost only £41,000 to make, and boy does it show. Camera work is amateur, the feeble 'jazz-lite' soundtrack jars in and out of the consciousness (the same guy who wrote the s/t to 'Gregory's Girl' was on board, and appears to have re-recorded his work for consumption here) while a couple of the other incidental tracks were bad, bad, bad.
Plot so thin it verges on the anorexic and that takes us to... the performances. Some good. Some very good, in fact. Some not so good and some others, naming no names, bloody awful.
The constant nods to Scottish films of far more illustrious stock (the aforementioned Gregory's Girl, Trainspotting, Local Hero, Restless Natives, etc.) are extraneous and annoying; it's as if this film wants a little bit of the stardust to rub off here. Not going to happen.
Like I say, I wanted to like this. Despite being English I have spent the majority of my life north of the Border and know what Scottish cinema is capable of. It's capable of much better than this.