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Tuesday, June 1, 2021

SWEET SIXTEEN (2002)

Ken Loach returns to North Country, Britain (near Glasgow?), land of limited opportunity & impenetrable accent to chart what might be called the exuberant hopelessness of sixteen-yr-old Liam (debuting Martin Compston, now lead in popular police anti-corruption drama LINE OF DUTY).  Out of school, he’s making solid cash as a low-level drug dealer with BFF ‘Pinwheel,’ but very much the dominate player.  Trying to expand the business, he starts working territory held by his mom’s hot-headed boyfriend with the expected violent results.  Small, but a pitbull when attacked, Liam attracts the attention of a local drug lord and soon has something of a cottage industry going using pizza deliveries as cover.  Yet, all the cash, all the ambition, all the violence is being channeled not for himself, but into buying a home for his mom, currently incarcerated and about to get out.  The idea that what he thinks Mom wants will not turn out to be what she actually wants never occurring to him and leading to tragic consequences.  Loach handles this with something between Neo-Realism & ‘Dogme’ techniques, and while much is very effective (though relationships hard to sort out under those accents!), the film often feels pre-determined (no doubt accurately reflecting the situation), but also dramatically pre-digested for maximum misery.*  In its own way, as manipulative as a focus-tested Hollywood product.  Something that keeps this film a good way off KES/’69, Loach’s miraculous early North Country feature, one he no doubt tires of always coming up short against.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK: As mentioned, KES/’69.  https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2012/08/kes-1969.html

SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *The ending pure Italian Verismo Operatic.  Very ‘La commedia รจ finita!

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