LONDON TO BRIGHTON (FILM REVIEW) - 14/01/08

Region 2 DVD cover

*Possible Spoilers*

The film opens in a run down public toilet somewhere in central London at 3:07am where two girls, Kelly (Lorraine Stanley) and pre-teen Joanne (Georgia Groome) are hiding from someone. Kelly's face has been beaten and her eye is swelling while Joanne is in tears and her clothing is torn. Meanwhile, the multi-millionaire crime lord, Duncan Alan (Alexander Morton), lies bleeding to death from multiple stab wounds in his luxury home. Alan's son, Stuart (Sam Spruell), has found his father's body and delivers an ultimatum to Kelly's pimp, the selfish Derek (Johnny Harris), either he finds Kelly and Joanne or Derek will die and this warning comes with a knife wound from Stuart into Derek's thigh. Kelly flees with Joanne out of the capital to stay with her friend, Karen, who lives in a run down council house with a group of drug addicts. Foolishly, Kelly leaves her mobile phone in the house when she takes Joanne out to the beach and Derek has been phoning up frequently to find out where Kelly and the girl are. When he tries again the phone is answered by one of Karen's doped up friends who unwittingly tells him that they are staying at Karen's house in Brighton. Derek and his henchman promptly arrive armed with a shotgun and brutally drag the pair off to a rendevouz that Stuart has arranged out in an isolated spot. Here we learn that Stuart's father paid Derek to find him a young girl, which unfortunately turned out to be Joanne since she was vulnerable living rough in the streets of the capital. Despite Kelly's protestations, Derek dragged the pair of them off to Duncan Alan's house where we learn that Duncan is a sexual preditor who preys on young girls. In a fit of anger, Kelly stabbed Duncan to death with a knife after she saw what he intended to do to Joanne and the pair of them fled and now Stuart, Duncan's quiet spoken but vengeful son wants revenge. But at the rendezvous, Stuart's revenge takes an unexpected turn...

London To Brighton marked the impressive feature film debut of Writer-Director Paul Andrew-Williams. Shot on a low budget of £265,000, the film is a gritty, harrowing, violent, yet often moving tale of the unfortunate Joanne (excellently played by Georgia Groome) who ran away from home after her mother died and her father, a violent alcoholic, was frequently beating her and was forced to fend for herself on the streets of the capital, which lead to her being caught up in the nasty world of child prostitution at the hands of the selfish Derek, who is prepared to find any clients for anybody if the price is right regardless of who they are. The film also looks at the friendship developed between Kelly and Joanne while they are running for their lives. For instance, as the pair walk along the beach in Brighton, Joanne is eager to go into the amusement arcade and win the grand prize of the teddy bear. Here we learn that Kelly has had a hard life and has not experienced the childhood pleasures that Joanne had before her life went pair shaped after the death of her mother. "Oh why do you want to do that?" she asks, but later she joins in and begins to enjoy herself and we see that she is now finding out about all the things she has missed out on during her childhood. But we are left to guess about Kelly's childhood as the screenplay gives us practically no insight as to her upbringing at all and it is left to us, the audience, to guess. Williams has succeeded in generating moving and believable performances from his cast of unknowns. Groome is outstanding as Joanne and is ably supported by Lorraine Stanley as her companion in survival, Kelly, whilst Johnny Harris portrays Derek the pimp more than convincingly as a selfish, heartless and often violent thug who is only out for his own neck. But at times he displays traits of an out and out coward and relies on his henchman to do his dirty work for him. Spruell is also stand out as the vengeful crime lord's son out for vengeance and the settings have complete authenticity such as the grimy red-light districts of London with run down blocks of flats and grafiti covered walls, which are contrasted with the beauty of the seaside resort of Brighton captured beautifully by Cinematographer Christopher Ross who varies the tones to suit the setting such as the grim greys of suburban London with the naturalistic beauty of the seaside scenes. Some critics have attacked the film for its violence claiming that they are there simply to generate the usual big screen suspense and thrills. I am inclined to disagree, yes the film is violent in places, but not to the extent where it is over the top, but harrowing none the less and they add to our sympathies for Kelly and Joanne's plight.

Overall, the subject matter of this film will not be up everybody's street because at first glance one may be inclined to dismiss it as violent and sensationalist rubbish. But in truth it is handled with more sensitivity and intelligence than I was expecting when I walked into my local arthouse venue to see it. Therefore I recommend this film very highly since it shows a promising new writing and directorial talent in the form of Paul Andrew Williams and I think the entire cast might just go on to do bigger and better things as well. Who was it that said that the British film industry was dead? There are so many quality British movies out there these days but many of them are confined to the arthouse circuit whilst the mainstream circuits end up playing the same special effects laden multi-million dollar epics that are all technical panache and nothing else.