Somers Town (film)

Somers Town
Directed by	Shane Meadows
Produced by	Zoe Bell Barnaby Spurrier
Written by	Paul Fraser
Music by	Louise Knight Sue Pocklington
Cinematography	Natasha Braier
Editing by	Richard Graham
Release date(s)	United Kingdom 22 August 2008 United States 15 July 2009
Running time	71 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English Polish
Box office	£566,616

Somers Town is a 2008 film directed by Shane Meadows, written by Paul Fraser and produced by Barnaby Spurrier. It stars Thomas Turgoose, Piotr Jagiello, Kate Dickie, Perry Benson, and Elisa Lasowski. It was entirely funded by Eurostar.

The film is a study of social environment in the Somers Town area of London, largely shot in black and white.

Plot

Somers Town follows two teenage boys Tomo and Marek, adrift in an adult world, who develop a mutual trust and form an unlikely friendship. Marek, a Polish immigrant, lives with his father who drinks too much. The film commences when Tomo runs away to London from a lonely, difficult life in the Midlands. When Tomo arrives at his destination, he attempts to enjoy cans of Carling that he asked a stranger to purchase for him. His luck changes when three boys approach him and ask him questions. The gang eventually robs Tomo of his bag which contains his money and clothes. They also beat him up.

In a local café Tomo approaches Marek who has taken photographs of the beautiful French waitress. To tease Marek, Tomo runs off with Marek's photographs, but then gives them back and they become friends. Marek explains that the woman in the photographs is his girlfriend and her name is Maria. Since they have neither kissed nor done anything remotely sexual, Tomo thinks she is just a friend of Marek's.

Tomo then lives clandestinely at Marek's place. The latter is adamant that his father not discover Tomo's existence at the flat. When Tomo and Marek find a wheelchair left in the street as rubbish, they offer to take the French waitress home in it. They describe it as being her 'special taxi.' She likes it, and after arriving at her flat she kisses both boys. She tells them she likes them equally and asks them both for a kiss. The next scene shows Marek outside the door of the toilet. He encourages Tomo to hurry up. Tomo is in the bathroom and will not be hurried. Marek is worried that his father has only gone to the shops and will catch Tomo. Marek then catches a naked Tomo sitting on the edge of the bathtub masturbating while looking at a picture of the French waitress. Tomo, however, is not embarrassed and laughs at the interruption.

The two then pass by the café where they learn that Maria has had to go home as one of her family members fell ill in France. The boys are indignant as Maria did not inform them. They are also upset because they bought food for her. They feel cheated are annoyed that they spent so much money on cheese, bread and grapes and that Maria did not have the decency to tell them that she was going. On the night that the father discovers the fact that Marek has been hiding someone in the flat, Tomo and Marek are very drunk. The pair are caught by Marek's father, who throws Tomo out of the flat and tells his son to clean up the mess. Marek then expresses to his father how lonely he is.

A hand-held camera reveals how the two boys travel to France. They meet the waitress who embraces them and she is very affectionate towards them. The last shot shows Marek and Tomo each giving the French waitress a kiss on the cheek, as she smiles. This portion of the movie is filmed in colour.

Production

The film was funded by Eurostar, as the story is set in the neighbourhood of the company's London terminal at St Pancras, which was just coming to the end of a £800 million re-build. Applying for Eurostar funding had been conceived by the Mother Advertising agency. The initial idea had been to make a short film, but it developed into a feature length script. The Mother agency approached Shane Meadows about directing the film; Meadows co-opted his regular script writer Paul Fraser and Tomboy Films produced it.

Location

Filming took place in Somers Town, an area of the London Borough of Camden south of Camden Town. The story is set immediately around Phoenix Court, a low-rise council property in Purchese Street.

Reception

The film was shown at the Berlin and Tribeca Film Festivals. At Tribeca, stars Thomas Turgoose and Piotr Jagiello jointly shared the award for Best Actor in a Narrative Feature Film. It premiered in the UK at Edinburgh International Film Festival on 20 June 2008, where it won the Michael Powell Award, the festival's highest award.

External links

• Official site
• Somers Town at the Internet Movie Database
• Somers Town at Metacritic
• Somers Town at Rotten Tomatoes