8/10: A gloomy feelgood gem.

8/10
Had anticipated this to be a strong 7 rather than a weak one (on IMDb), gave it an 8.

In short: If you like feelgood movies this shouldn't be missed. It's very well directed and the parts come together pretty much seamlessly. It centers around a British lower class worker family (and the lack of family - in the sense of the classical natural unit of the family).

In long: Cinematography is on que (gloomy British suburbs) together with allright sound and decent editing to increase the pace slowly to start with - build connection to the characters and then smoothly transgress and take the story further more rapidly as events unfold.
The messages (which contains spoilers and is put under "End Notes") is skillfully woven together and it's first afterwards it annoys me a little how well that is actually made (I'm ambivalent if it's made as a conservative view of the family unit, which I'm leaning to or simply an amplified byproduct). The 3 (or two) messages intersect, one downplayed but everpresent (the formerly mentioned) and the other two the ones you as a viewer should pick up quite easily. Costume and makeup is suitable (though these kinds of movies are quite hard to fail at nailing this area). The fight scenes were realistically made though possibly depiciting younger characters (in reality) than the age of the actors represent.

This is in no way an original storyline but by taking it a little further with the depiction of events than generally is made and focusing on the reality of it this movie comes out better than the majority (of this type). The feelgood notion of the movie is the same notion that often ruins these kinds of movies from being good but it doesn't here. If the actors had aced their roles, the sound had been a little better (crisp & emphasising the plot more) and it had been a little slower at times this could have been close to a masterpiece.


Pro's
• Good performances by all of the main cast
• Editing, cinematography and sound ("hand in glove")
• Script (unoriginal but makes it it's own by avoiding the normal pitfalls)

Con's
• Character rationality lessens at points but is never unbelieveable
• Could have been a tad more slowpaced at times towards the end to strengthen the emotional sentiment.

End Notes:
Two clear messages meet in this piece, it's never too late to turn around (which is downplayed) and the classical message of "home is where your heart is". They are smoothly woven together with the benefits of the classical family unit (mother, father and children) as a backdrop - this is skillfully done and has master tendencies written all over it (it's hard not to believe it wasn't with intent). It also caters to other interests as it clearly marks out how a happy family looks while not making it stand out as if it was the center piece of the message (that was the part that annoys me because I think it is intentionally made such).

[EDIT] Grammar. "Autocorrect" has tweaked badly - swapped British for Britain for once. 80% of people (study, the number is commonly cited) ignore the message if the spelling or grammar is off, so note that it might not be an unintentional "correction" from my point of view IMDb is starting to look ALOT like reddit, sadly).

Ignorance is only a bliss if you haven't reached awareness.
My imdb posts are getting altered.