This is England – murky moral ground and skinheads

This is England (2006) directed by Shane Meadows stars Thomas Turgoose (Shaun), Stephen Graham (Combo), Jo Hartley (Cynth), Andrew Shim (Milky), Vicky McClure (Lol), Jospeh Gilgun (Woody), Rosamund Hanson (Smell), Andrew Ellis (Gadget), Perry Benson (Meggy), George Newton (Banjo) and Frank Harper (Lenny).

The basic premise is that the twelve year old boy Shaun is having a hard time in the early 1983’s in England. He’s just lost his father in the Falkland wars and he is living with his mother in the poor part of town. The opening sequence shows a montage of 80’s news and sets the scene nicely. We then get introduced to the young Shaun who is bullied at school for wearing the wrong clothes and gets into a fight.

On his way home from school Shaun runs in to a pack of skinheads lead by Woody (Joseph Gilgun) and for some reason Woody takes pity on the young boy and tries to cheer him up. The dynamic of the skinhead pack is reminiscent of a pack of dogs, there’s a lot of snarling and physical correction of behaviour, but at the same time they act like Lost Boys with their own screwed up version of Peter Pan in the lead.

There’s a certain lawlessness to their behaviour, tinged with fantasy, and that has it’s appeal for the young Shaun, who has no other friends and nowhere to pour his anger. He quickly becomes accepted into their circle and adopts all the trappings of a little skinhead, boots and shirt and suspenders.

It’s not until Combo (Stephen Graham) appears on the scene that things take a sinister turn. Combo is fresh out of prison and clearly more political than the rest of the gang. Things get worse from here on out. The gang gets split up and Shaun, for reasons that seem very clear when you operate within the logic of the movie, opts to stay with Combo’s fraction.

It doesn’t end well, but then again, why would it?

It’s hard to avoid the parallel to Geoffrey Wright’s Romper Stomper (1992) and Tony Kaye’s American History X (1998), but there is, for lack of a better wording, a kind of innocence to this movie, probably largely due to the fact that the protagonist is so young. The unpremeditated cruelty of the very young lends itself to a more uncomplicated way of relating to this kind of behaviour. Shaun can’t see the sinister undercurrent to everything that Combo says, but we, the adult viewers, see it and understand it for what it is. It’s easy to be seduced by someone who promises to never leave you, to always look out for you and care for you, especially for a young boy like Shaun who has lost his father and is already toeing the line of acceptable behaviour.

It isn’t until Shaun gets to see Combo behave in a way that is not acceptable within the group, assaulting and beating up one of “their own” that Shaun wakes up to what kind of environment he has found himself in. Basically, it’s all fun and games until someone gets kicked in the head.

I’ve had issues with the convoluted morality of all three films mentioned here. I think it is mostly about the seduction – the attempt to portray these fractions from the inside with an insiders more forgiving eye, that makes them seem a little too lax. Even the attempts at moral anagnorisis always come up a little short. Shaun actually has to see his would be father-figure beat seven different kinds of crap out of someone before he clocks on to there being something wrong with this whole thing.

That being said, this is a movie that provides food for thought, gives at least a glimpse into the mechanisms behind what makes a group of people chose this lifestyle. The acting is solid all the way through, and that includes the young Thomas Turgoose, who plays Shaun with a lack of artifice that makes all the difference. The movie stands and falls with his performance so that was a clever piece of casting. Stephen Graham (Combo) also gives a very good performance especially in the scene ending with him assaulting Milky. You can literally see in his eyes where things start going wrong which adds to the sinking feeling in this viewers stomach.

All in all, this is a movie well worth watching. It’s funny in some places and very dark in others, and it is not simple and certainly not unambiguous, but then again – it really shouldn’t be. If it were, the director would have failed miserably.

Mule