Shane Meadows' new film puts him firmly at the top of the pile of British filmmakers who are actually making films about Britain. Partly based on Meadows' own experiences as a skinhead in the Midlands backwater of Uttoxeter in the 1980s, This is England is an often hilarious and ultimately very moving indictment of the times seen through the eyes of a young teenager.
Thomas Turgoose stars - and stars is most definitely the right word - as Shaun, a cheeky thirteen-year-old grieving for the recent death of his father during the Falklands conflict. Living in a shabby council flat with a mother who dresses him in the fashions of the 1970s, Shaun befriends a group of skinheads at his school, and begins to find a new identity for himself.
What Meadows is at pains to point out is that the original British skinheads were a multi-coloured mix of black and white, and Shaun finds himself under the wing of some of the gang's prominent members including the white Woody (Joe Gilgun) and the black Milky (Andrew Shin). Instead of terrorising the neighbourhood or seeking out racist victims, these skins are more likely to have a nice cup of tea while chilling out to some ska.
Shaun's brief idyll is shattered by the return to town of former gang-member Combo (Stephen Graham), who plays the outsider figure usually associated with Paddy Considine in earlier Meadows' films such as A Room for Romeo Brass and Dead Man's Shoes. Combo is also a skin, but one who has been radicalised by the NF in his recent stay in prison, and he has one thing on his mind: to convert the rest of the group to his new all-white way of thinking.
The set and costume design, accompanied by a blistering soundtrack, are already enough to make this a highly enjoyable affair. But what lifts Meadows' work to the highest level are both his script and the extraordinary group of young actors he has found. Turgoose delivers one of the best debuts in recent times, while Stephen Graham provides an uneasy mix of charm and terror as the group's chief tormentor. One of the best films of the year and not to be missed.
Paul Hurley
