Starring: Conner Chapman, Shaun Thomas, Sean Gilder, Siobhan Finneran, and Lorraine Ashbourne
Distributor: Rialto Films
Runtime: 91 mins. Reviewed in Jul 2014
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This is a British drama film, based very loosely on a story of the same name written by Oscar Wilde. It tells the tale of two young boys who live and work in an under-privileged area of Northern England. Wilde wrote his original story as a make-believe fable, but this film is intensely realistic and is set entirely differently in industrial UK. The movie was awarded Best Film at the 2013 Stockholm International Film Festival, and is Clio Barnard’s second feature film.
Arbor (Conner Chapman) and Swifty (Shaun Thomas) are 13 years of age and very close friends, and they live in the West Yorkshire city of Bradford. Their friendship offers them comfort in a very cold world, and their families fight to survive in impoverished environments.
Arbor suffers from a disabling hyperactivity disorder that often gets him and anyone he associates with into trouble. Swifty is his voice of reason, and is the only person that can control his rage. The appearance of both boys hides fragility, and they both come from dysfunctional families.
They regularly miss school in search for excitement. One day they are both suspended from school for aggressively standing up for each other, and make the decision to earn money from collecting and selling scrap metal. They sell the scrap metal they gather to a local dealer called Kitten (Sean Gilder), the “selfish giant” of the film’s title. Kitten earns his name by virtue of his greed, irritability, and meanness. He is manipulative and selfish, but Arbor and Swifty realise that Kitten is the only person who is willing to give them a chance. Kitten uses the boys to do his dirty work, but he is the means of helping them look for a better life, and Arbor and Swifty know that they are together and have each other.
Kitten gets on well with Swifty, and his uncharacteristic kindness to Swifty makes Arbor jealous. Arbor’s envy starts to affect his friendship with Swifty, and he reacts to his perceived exclusion by stealing scrap metal from Kitten behind his back. Kitten finds out and pressures Arbor to make up for what he has done. Arbor goes away to steal high voltage wire for scrap and Swifty arrives to help him. But in handling the wire, Swifty is electrocuted and dies tragically. Irreconcilable, Arbor sits alone outside Swifty’s home. The film concludes by showing us Swifty’s devastated mother (Siobhan Finneran) hugging him, to share their pain.
This is a movie with a simple story that has incredible emotional impact. Its depiction of poverty, desperation, love and friendship is amazingly realistic. The film is a social-realist drama with an extraordinarily moving vision, and its vision is reinforced compellingly by superb acting by the entire cast, especially Chapman and Thomas. Chapman, in particular, is wonderful. As Arbor, he brings fierce vitality, passion and vulnerability to his role.
The harshness of gritty working-class life in Bradford is conveyed brilliantly by the film’s director of cinematography, Mike Eley. His photography dwells on situations in a way that screams neglect, and it offers brutal comment on what it is like to grow up in industrial, working-class Britain today. Shots of animals, fields, and streets are framed dramatically. Stunning scenes of misty landscapes with industrial edifices looming skywards in the background, tell us that something different (perhaps better) exists elsewhere.
This is a bold piece of cinema. It is a very sad but extremely powerful movie about poverty, neglect, manipulation, friendship, attachment, and loss. It is not at all suitable for children in the tragedy that it depicts, but it is a remarkable and memorable piece of cinema.
The film is not a pretty movie to watch, but Clio Barnard, the film’s female director, brings to the movie enormous intelligence and a finely honed sense of humanity. This is unflinching cinema, which movingly reveals the lives of people caught in circumstances, that cry out to be changed.
This will be one of the finest films of the year.
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