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This Is England

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For the song by The Clash, see This Is England (song).
This Is England
Theatrical release poster
Directed byShane Meadows
Written byShane Meadows
Produced byMark Herbert
StarringThomas Turgoose
Joe Gilgun
Andrew Shim
Vicky McClure
Stephen Graham
Rosamund Hanson[1]
CinematographyGonzalo Fernández Berridi
Edited byChris Wyatt
Music byLudovico Einaudi
Production
companies
Distributed byUnited Kingdom:
Optimum Releasing
United States:
IFC Films
Release date
27 April 2007
Running time
101 min.
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
Budget£1,500,000
Box office$8,069,240

This Is England is a 2006 drama film written and directed by Shane Meadows. The story centres on a group of young skinheads in England in 1983. The film illustrates that the skinhead subculture, whose 1960s roots include elements of black culture (especially ska, soul and reggae music),[2] eventually became adopted by white nationalists, which led to divisions within the skinhead scene.

Plot

The film begins with 12-year-old Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) getting in a fight at school after someone makes an offensive joke about his father, who died in the Falklands War. On his way home, in an unhappy mood, Shaun runs into a group of young, non-racist skinheads led by Woody (Joe Gilgun), who feels sympathy for Shaun and invites him to join them. The whole group eventually accepts Shaun as a member and he finds a big brother of sorts in Woody, whilst developing a romance with Smell (Rosamund Hanson), an older girl who dresses in a punky new wave style.

Things change when Combo (Stephen Graham), an older skinhead, returns to the group after serving a prison sentence. He expresses white nationalist views and attempts to enforce his leadership over the other skinheads. This leads the group to split in two. Shaun stays in Combo's racist group instead of leaving with the non-political skinheads led by Woody. Combo identifies with the troubled Shaun, who sees Combo as something of a father figure. Eager to please his new mentor and honour his father's death, Shaun goes with Combo's group to a white nationalist meeting and engages in racist antagonism of, amongst others, his local shopkeeper (who actually treated Shaun rather cruelly at the start of the film).

Combo becomes depressed after Woody's girlfriend Lol — who Combo has loved since a drunken one-night-stand years ago — rejects him. To console himself, Combo smokes cannabis that he bought from Milky (the only black skinhead in the film). At a party with Shaun and the other members of Combo's group, Combo and Milky bond while intoxicated. Combo's mood darkens and suddenly he snaps, beating Milky unconscious whilst Shaun screams and tries to intervene. Almost killing Milky, Combo then shows panic and remorse, begging Shaun to help him get Milky to a hospital.

The film later cuts to a scene between Shaun and his mother, who tries to reassure him that Milky will be fine. The film closes with Shaun throwing his St George's Cross flag, a symbol of his friendship with Combo, into the sea.

Cast

Filming

Much of the film was shot in predominantly residential areas of Nottingham, including St Ann's, Lenton and The Meadows, with one section featuring abandoned houses at the former airbase RAF Newton, just outside of Bingham, Nottinghamshire.[3] The opening fight sequence was filmed at Wilsthorpe Business and Enterprise College, a secondary school in Derbyshire.[4] Additional scenes were filmed in Grimsby, Turgoose's home town.

Turgoose was 13 at the time of filming.[5] Turgoose had never acted before, had been banned from his school play for bad behaviour, and demanded £5 to turn up for the film's auditions.[6] The film was dedicated to Turgoose's mother, Sharon, who died of cancer on 29 December 2005; while she never got to see the film, she saw a short preview. The whole cast attended her funeral to support Turgoose.

Reaction

The film was given an 18 certificate by the BBFC due to its racist language and incidence of violence. However, some councils such as Bristol, Camden and Westminster have chosen to overturn this, feeling the film should more widely reach its target audience of teenagers. The film was shown at various international film festivals, including London, and special permission was granted to Meniscus for it to be shown at Grimsby's Whitgift Film Theatre.

As of 5 January 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 93% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 82 reviews.[7] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 86 out of 100, based on 23 reviews — indicating "universal acclaim".[8] This made it the tenth best reviewed film of the year.[9] The film appeared on several US critics' top ten movie lists of 2007; it was third on the list by Newsweek's David Ansen, seventh on the list by The Oregonian's Marc Mohan, and ninth on the list by Los Angeles Times' Kevin Crust.[10] In Britain, director Gillies Mackinnon rated the film the best of the year[11] and David M. Thompson, critic and film-maker, rated it third.[12] The film was ranked fourteenth in The Guardian's list of 2007's Best Films[13] and fifteenth in Empire's Movies of the Year.

The film won the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film at the 2007 British Academy Film Awards. It also won the Best Film category at the 2006 British Independent Film Awards, with Thomas Turgoose winning the Most Promising Newcomer award.

TV spin-off

On August 26, 2009, Channel 4 announced that it will fund a four-part television drama, We Were Faces, to be written by Shane Meadows and Jack Thorne. It will pick up the story of several of the characters of This Is England, four years on. Meadows said:

When I finished This Is England, I had a wealth of material and unused ideas that I felt very keen to take further – audiences seemed to really respond to the characters we created and out of my longstanding relationship with Film4 and Channel 4 the idea for a television serial developed. Not only did I want to take the story of the gang broader and deeper, I also saw in the experiences of the young in 1986 many resonances to now – recession, lack of jobs, sense of the world at a turning point. Whereas the film told part of the story, the TV serial will tell the rest.[14]

It will be set when the 1986 World Cup was in Mexico, Chris de Burgh held the #1 slot in the music charts and 3.4 million people were unemployed in Britain. As Shaun (still played by Thomas Turgoose) writes his last school exam, he realises that he will have to find his own way in the world. His friends — including Woody, Lol, Smell, Gadget and Pukey — are still around, looking for love, laughs and a job.[15] Meadows said that Combo (again played by Stephen Graham) would return, that the fate of Milky would be revealed, and that part of the storyline would be based around a planned wedding between Woody and Lol that would be called off. He said if the four-part series was successful, he would follow it up with another series.[16]

Meadows said he hoped that Paddy Considine, a regular collaborator, would play a role. He plans to start filming in spring 2010.[17] In a promotion for Meadows' 2009 film, Le Donk & Scor-zay-zee, review magazine Total Film held a competition for a walk-on role in the series.[18]

On Jan 6 2010, Meadows revealed on the forum of his official website that the title of the project would now be This is England 86. He also revealed that Milky was alive, Combo would return and that Woody was climbing the management ladder at Kwik Save and about to marry Lol. The scripts are now complete and filming is due to begin at the very end of March, begining of April.[19]

References

  1. ^ This Is England | Reviews | Guardian Unlimited Film
  2. ^ Subcultures, pop music and politics: skinheads and "Nazi rock" in England and Germany | Journal of Social History | Find Articles at BNET.com
  3. ^ "Films made in Nottingham". Thisisnottingham.co.uk. (29 November 2008). Retrieved on 6 April 2009.
  4. ^ BBC News report 12 September 2005
  5. ^ BBC NEWS | England | Humber | Teenager Tommo lands gritty role
  6. ^ Thomas Turgoose: the 13-year-old cheeky chappy goes from Grimsby to the big screen | YOU Magazine
  7. ^ "This Is England - Rotten Tomatoes". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved 2008-01-05.
  8. ^ "This Is England (2007): Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved 2008-01-05.
  9. ^ "The Best-Reviewed Movies of 2007". Metacritic. Retrieved 2008-01-05.
  10. ^ "Metacritic: 2007 Film Critic Top Ten Lists". Metacritic. Retrieved 2008-01-05.
  11. ^ "The Insider's View, 21 December 2007". The Independent. Retrieved 2008-01-05.
  12. ^ "Films of the Year 2007" (PDF). Sight & Sound. Retrieved 2008-01-05.
  13. ^ "2007's Best Films". The Guardian. Retrieved 2008-01-05.
  14. ^ "Channel 4's extra £20m for drama to fund Shane Meadows' TV debut". The Guardian. Retrieved 2009-11-10.
  15. ^ "Meadows to make TV debut with This Is England sequel". Broadcast Now. Retrieved 2009-11-10.
  16. ^ "Shane on This Is England spin-off". Virgin Media. Retrieved 2009-11-10.
  17. ^ "Shane Meadows wants Paddy". The Sun. Retrieved 2009-11-10.
  18. ^ "Win a walk on part in Shane Meadows' new TV show!". Total Film. Retrieved 2009-11-10.
  19. ^ http://www.shanemeadows.co.uk/

External links

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