Review #761: 'This Is England' (2006)

Shane Meadows' This is England, like the title suggests, is a bare-knuckled, fearlessly honest depiction of England. This isn't any old England, but Thatcher's angry, graffiti-ridden, skinheaded England, a time of needless war, poverty, and, key to the film, racial intolerance. Meadows' loosely autobiographical film lays it's anger out for all to see from the off, as the camera lingers on a council-estate wall scrawled with 'Maggie is a twat'. But there's humour here also, and heart.

We witness the majority of the film through the eyes of Shaun Fields (Thomas Turgoose - his character's name a thinly-disguised spin on that of the director's), a ragged, bullied loner, who lives alone with his mother after his father is killed in the Falklands. Walking home one evening from school, he is pitied by Woody (Joseph Gilgun), a Dr. Martens-wearing skinhead who, along with his friends, enjoys some harmless vandalism taken out on derelict properties. Woody takes him under his wing, even buying him a Ben Sherman and braces, and shaving his head. His mum doesn't approve, but at least he's being looked after. All is rosy until Woody's old friend Combo (Stephen Graham) is released from prison.

His time in prison taught Combo that England is no longer what it once was, and is now overrun by immigrants taking away jobs from honest folk like himself and his bare-chested, meat-head friend Banjo (George Newton). He draws a line for Woody's gang - those who want to join him on his crusade to help restore England to it's glory days, and those who don't. Woody quickly points out that Combo is out of line, especially in the presence of his Jamaican friend Milky (Andrew Shim). But when Woody leaves, Shaun stays, and is sucked in by Combo's charisma, attending right-wing rallies in countryside pubs and smashing up the local shop owned by a Pakistani man.

Like Elem Klimov's Come and See (1985), the child protagonist does the remarkable thing of ageing throughout. Not a physical transformation like Florya, but in presence. He evolves effortlessly from a boy whining at his mum in a shoe shop for not buying him a pair of Dr. Martens, to a foul-mouthed, brainless thug gobbling up everything that is fed to him by those around him. Meadows makes it clear that there are two types of skin-heads - those who embrace the style and image influenced by black music such as ska, and those bigoted, entitled types, channelling anger simply because it's there. Combo is obviously the second kind, but he has own dimensions too.

Stephen Graham's performance is spectacular and genuinely terrifying. Anyone who has grown up in England will know the type; the type thankfully I've only ever come across when they get on a train and quickly draw attention to themselves. His words fly like scouse venom, his every line punctured by a swear word. But his protection of Shaun and his occasional child-like vulnerability means that there's sympathy to be given somewhere. Like all great child performances, Turgoose remains a child throughout, avoiding precociousness even in his most emotional scenes. And it's 12 year-old Shaun that remains the film's anchor, our wide-eyed window into innocence manipulated.


Directed by: Shane Meadows
Starring: Thomas Turgoose, Stephen Graham, Jo Hartley, Andrew Shim, Joseph Gilgun, Vicky McClure
Country: UK

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie