Navigation

London to Brighton (2006)

Dir: Paul Andrew Williams

 

Two girls burst into a run down London toilet.
Joanne (Georgia Groome ) is the youngest and is crying, her clothing ripped.
Kelly (Lorraine Stanley) is the older woman, her face is bruised, her smashed eye starting to swell.
All the while mobster Duncan Allen lies in his bedroom bleeding to death. The bedroom where Joanne and Kelly were only a short time ago.
Duncan's son, Stuart (Sam Spruell), has found his Father and wants answers so he ‘persuades’ Kelly’s pimp Derek (Johnny Harris) to find Kelly and whoever she was with, or die.
Meanwhile Kelly and Joanne board a train to Brighton….

 

This searing feature debut by Paul Andrew Williams may take it's basic set-up from the dying fad of the modern British Gangster film but "London to Brighton" is not another "Lock Stock" or even "Gangster #1" as here the gangland villains are secondary to those less glamorous and hip characters who are unfortunate enough to orbit the seedy world of those sharp suited hoods and wannabe gangstas.

Kelly and Joanne are the specks of dirt that even the small-time pimps, let alone the big time gangsters, brush of their clothes without a second's thought after getting to close and yet here Williams' has given them their own time in the yellowed spotlight so we can see what happens when the specks of dirt suddenly mean life and death to those around them. When all of a sudden they do actually mean something and hold the destiny of all those who could care less in their trembling hands.

To do this Williams' has chosen two fine actresses in Lorraine Stanley and the young Georgia Groome who pull out all the stops to portray their characters as fully rounded human beings. Joanne may act tough but her lament out of the train window about how much she loves the countryside and her enthusiasm to visit the beach show the desperate child inside.
She really comes into her own in the later scenes though, when she has to recount what happened in the bedroom, as she has to fight the frightened child in her to find the strength to say what must be said.

But it is Lorraine Stanley who really impresses here. Kelly, one of life's obvious victims, is thrown at us from the opening scene as a human tragedy, a bloody mess of literally battered hopes, a thing to be used and abused (and cynically placated) whenever the need arises.
But there is a fire here that still smoulders, a fire of desperate dignity that refuses to go out. Fear and panic and even her own safety are put aside to do what needs to be done when the time is right, be it speedily selling herself to the first punter who comes by to get her and Joanne the train ticket money they need to escape or charging into the room of a monster to rescue an innocent who she hardly knows even though she knows the consequences.
As the hard talking, hard living Kelly, Stanley spits out expletive laden defiance to those who would hurt her and Joanne with great aplomb, but can also handle the quieter scenes with Joanne with just as much skill in timing and delivery. And her face, even though it spends almost the entire film bruised and swollen gives the audience more insight than any dialogue can do.

The other actors are all fine but play it all pretty much as you would expect given their Gangland or low rent pimp characters. As the nasty, scheming Derek, Johnny Harris, ("Gangster #1") certainly does a solid job with his more base and simplistic character but Sam Spruell is the male actor who stands out the most after Lorraine Stanley and Georgia Groome because he has a far more interesting character to play with. Stuart Allen is certainly a ruthless hoodlum with his fingers (despite his loathing for the low life’s he needs to operate) in many fetid pies. But he's also just a damaged son raised by a devil of a Father and deep in him a conflict rages that perhaps means his days as a hoodlum were numbered before they had even begun. As the puppet master who holds the strings to all the characters involved Sprurell manages to make the mainly background hugging Stuart Allen a memorable character.

Away from the cast the main star here is certainly Paul Andrew Williams himself who has not only written a verbally acidic script (packed with realistic language that is meant to shock), but also a structurally clever but nicely simple one.
There is no pretension here, no needless tricks, no wasted scenes that only exist to lead to endless twists and turns that only exist themselves to deliver a one fix climax that leaves the rest of the film hollow and certainly pointless for second viewings. It's lean, mean, to the point story-telling that is rare these days.
"Lock Stock" still works and entertains even when you know the outcome because of the great dialogue, characters and basic design of the film that such comic takes on the Gangster film need.

But a deathly serious film like "London to Brighton" would ultimately consume itself if it solely existed for it's finale (take something like "Lucky Number Slevin" which is enjoyable enough but ultimately designed purely to pull off the final twist that once known means the film is now spent and worthless), but the journey to their fate is just as important than what that fate ultimately is for the characters of "London to Brighton" as Williams' follows them in gritty documentary style (highly effective Cinematography by Christopher Ross) through the wet, dank London streets to the derelict facade of grey cloud shrouded Brighton. All encompassed in a highly atmospheric score by Laura Rossi.

Dark, grimy, harsh and deadly serious "London to Brighton" may be, but it's also a rewarding, exceptionally made and acted movie that deserves your attention.