The Selfish Giant (***1/4) [screening]

The friendship between two kids, called Arbor (Conner Chapman) and Swifty (Shaun Thomas), in working-class Bradford, in northern England, is at the center of this drama. With a prescription he only sometimes takes and that only somewhat calms him down, Arbor is what could be called a bad influence. As we are introduced to him, he’s a foul-mouthed 13- or 14-year-old who mouths off to his teachers. He’d rather be stealing metal and selling it for scrap. Swifty is his bigger, but gentler friend. The movie starts out all murky and chaotic, Arbor yelling at his brother, the two boys stealing wire for scrap — on a borrowed horse — then dealing with the unfriendly scrapyard boss, Arbor yelling at his mom, Swifty’s father yelling, the boys playing at wrestling each other. The story focuses more around midway, and it then becomes a surprising, almost sweet, tale, though never suggestive of its fairy-tale title, borrowed from an Oscar Wilde fable.

The subjects of the film and the non-romanticized portraits of them are reminiscent of Ken Loach films like Sweet Sixteen, but whereas Loach tends to highlight the desperation of his characters, suggesting implied messages about class and the unfairness of life, writer-director Clio Barnard keeps her characters in a world that seems more self-contained, though no less keenly observed. Presumably the scrapyard owner, presumably the selfish giant, is making good money, but he is of the same class. They live in a pitiless world, and pity was not my reaction to them or the other characters. I was not surprised that the two boys, neither an established actor, were from the same background as the characters. They’re quite convincing, and I had trouble imagining a posh kid from London mastering the unfamiliar accents (English, but very helpfully subtitled) and profanity-laced slang (“divs” was one insult I remember) that peppers the dialogue. Barnard’s previous film, The Arbor was a documentary about a playwright from the area in which this was filmed.  She seems to have absorbed the setting, and the scrub country and council houses and scrapyards provide enough visual imagery so as to be almost as memorable as the human characters.



IMDb link

viewed 10/23/13 7:25 pm at Rtiz East [Philadelphia Film Festival screening] and posted 10/24/13