This is England (2006)

I was not expecting to enjoy this. Films with child protagonists often suffer from the fact that most children are not actually very good at acting, and i think it’s true that the child in this gave the weakest performance. But it was not a bad performance by any means, and the plot was good enough that i could easily overlook it.

The other actors were all pretty good, although there was sometimes some dialogue which left me unsure if it was meant to sound stilted, or if that was just awkward vibes between the actors. Either way, it was played off well.

The film documents how the uk skinhead subculture was infiltrated by racist ideology. Watching characters you like join a far-right political movement was distressing, but they were all treated with humanity. They didn’t want to let anyone down, and they just wanted to feel a part of something. The film ends ambiguously, which i don’t always like but here it worked well with the ominous tone.

The relationship between the twelve-year-old protagonist and an older teenager was a little weird and given very little discussion. I’m not sure how old the other girl was, but it still seemed that the relationship wasn’t exactly appropriate. Here was a child with no friends, doing things to make a group accept him. It’s not exactly a strong foundation for a healthy relationship, but if that was the intention, it seemed like a surprising omission to simply not mention anything.

Aside from that, the film was very good. Especially now as we are again seeing aggressive nationalism and racist sentiment on the rise in the uk, it’s quite a scary film to watch.