London To Brighton

[diggedy derek]

This is on BBC1 at the moment.

I'm usually all for hard-hitting gritty realism, but this tale of pimps, paedophiles and prositutes is astonishingly and unremittingly bleak, to the point of being rather hard to take seriously.

A very early plot development, for instance, involves a prostitute forced into trying to pick up a teenage runaway off the street at short notice for a paedophile. Perhaps this happens, sometimes, but the way they get this done – the adult characters forced into doing it at gunpoint and with threats of violence. It just doesn't seem real. I imagine procurement would be rather more subtle, slowly grooming homeless girls or something, though barely less cruel.

There's many excellent and intense performances, but this film just didn't convince me at all. Given it's veneer of seriousness and documentary realsim, I found it really distasteful and exploitative actually.

[Guest]

London To Brighton

On paper, this is a ludicrously cliched film. Tough-but-caring prostitute goes on the run from sadistic, sharp-suited Cockney gangster? Plus, the film ends (!!!!!!SPOILER!!!!!) with the would-be child prostitute going to live with her granny in the idyllic countryside. Really, it should be awful.

And yet, when I saw this film at the cinema, I never thought about these things. I found it utterly gripping. The hand-held direction, the close-ups and the editing immediately throw the viewer into this terrifying, claustrophobic world and rarely lets up. The performances add to this intensity. It's one of those films where the actual film-making covers the script's many flaws and implausibilities.

I'm sure a second viewing - especially on a small screen - would lessen its impact considerably. Which is probably why I haven't watched it again.

[Guest]

London To Brighton

I watched this tonight (on an even smaller screen than a TV).

It's as grim as the first four letters of Grimsby. Thank christ that it's only about 78 minutes in length.

It's very well acted, especially by the young girl and the guy playing the repulsive shaven-headed pimp, but you could see the climactic plot twist coming a mile off. And there was no need whatsoever for the head villain to be a xerox of Paul Bettany's character in Gangster No 1.

It was exciting in its own relentlessly horrible way, but I deleted it off the hard drive the moment the credits rolled.

The girl who plays the friend living in Brighton is the spitting image of Zooey Deschanel. For about a full minute I actually thought it was her.

[El Nacnud]

London To Brighton

This film depressed me so much. I was impressed by it, but definitely won't be rushing to watch it again.