London to Brighton (2008)

Some call it a gem, some call it a masterpiece, I would call it an okay movie to watch once but certainly not a gem nor masterpiece. For that London To Brighton is just not captivating enough. It could have used so more action and hardcore images. To me it looked all a bit too soft, even though the story itself is hard and cruel. The acting was not bad though, especially from the young Georgia Groome, that I thought did a very good job concidering her age. Like the rest of the cast they made this movie worth watching, but I wasn't blown away by the story that had good ideas but to me failed to make it exceptional.

The movie starts in a bathroom with Kelly (Lorraine Stanley) bruised and battered, while young Joanne (Georgia Groome) is cowering. They scrap together enough money for a train trip from London to Brighton. They're on the run from some dangerous gangsters led by Stuart Allen (Sam Spruell). The movie flashbacks to the beginning when prostitute Kelly befriends 12 year old runaway Joanne. Kelly's pimp Derek (Johnny Harris) tries to turn her.This is a gritty little indie from newcomer writer/director Paul Andrew Williams. The performance are all solid. The two leads are amazing. The movie does the bottom dwelling grim pretty well. There are some slower spots in the movie. But the great performances and the harrowing story are building to a really good dark ending. A minor complaint is that it doesn't go through with it. Instead it has a happy ending which is probably more sellable.

One of the most harrowing films I have seen in a long time; a little clunky in places, but the superb acting by all involved glosses over that fact. Georgia Groome is especially note-worthy for such a tough role at a young age, the partnership between her and the character of Kelly is believable - making us route for them even more. At every turn, when the film feels it is about to walk into a cliché, especially towards the end, it admirably, if not horrifyingly, veers away. British cinema has always produced some of the best kitchen-sink / social problem films, and London to Brighton stands up as an exceptional addition to that canon.

I remember This Is England being one of the most realistic British films I had ever seen, and I felt the same satisfaction after finishing this powerful crime drama. Basically prostitute Kelly (Lorraine Stanley) with twelve-year-old newcomer Joanne (Georgia Groome) are on the run heading to from London to Brighton after doing something terrible. Originally Kelly's pimp Derek (Johnny Harris) with associate Chum (Nathan Constance) are in pursuit of them, with orders to find them by mobster Stuart Allen (Sam Spruell). As the girls hide out and the boys try to find them, we see what the girls did through a series of flashbacks. Derek needed to find a twelve-year-old girl to perform sexual acts for mobster Duncan Allen (Alexander Morton), Stuart's father, and Kelly found Joanne on the streets. After being offered a good amount of money Joanne accepts her job, she and Duncan get together, but Kelly stops them when he was attempting to rape her, and they kill him. So Derek and Chum eventually find the girls in Brighton, take them to a meeting place where Stuart is, and you'd expect him to want to kill the girls after the boys dig their graves, but actually he kills the boys, and the girls are let go. Also starring David Keeling as Charlie, Jamie Kenna as Tony, Chloe Bale as Karen and Claudie Blakley as Tracey. Young Groome is very good, Stanley is superb, and Harris is menacing, as with This Is England the performances and story is so realistic it is disturbingly good. It was nominated the BAFTA for the Carl Foreman Award for the Most Promising Newcomer for director Paul Andrew Williams. Very good!