Review - Somers Town

This entertaining little curio was originally supposed to be a short promotional film for Eurostar until director Shane Meadows extended it into a (barely) feature length film. Filmed in evocative black and white, Somers Town follows the lives of two new arrivals to the eponymous area of London – young polish boy Marek (Piotr Jagiello) who has just moved with his dad, and youngster Tomo (Thomas Turgoose) who has come to Somers Town from Nottingham, to escape his life there.

Somers Town is very much a character driven so luckily Marek and Tomo are interesting to follow. We learn about Marek's problems at home living only with his dad, who would rather get drunk with his Polish builder buddies than spend some time with his son. Tomo also suffers from problems at home as well, although these are never explicitly seen on screen. While near opposites, with Marek quiet and thoughtful, and Tomo loud, brash and liable to speak before he thinks, their eventual friendship is a believable one and brought humorously and vividly to life by the two young actors. They are both bought together by a mutual bond, being new in the area and having difficult home lives. Shane Meadows populates the film with a smattering of entertaining minor characters, the highlight being wideboy London tinker Graham (Perry Benson.) Two other important stars of the film are the great soundtrack, and Somers Town and the surrounding area itself. In black and white the area loses its unappealing grubbiness and exudes a strange sort of charm.

Clocking in at around seventy minutes, the film doesn't give itself the chance to outstay its welcome. In fact, and I haven't written this about a film for a long while, I wouldn't of minded if the running time was a little bit longer. I felt the finale came on a bit too quickly and the film still had a bit more to say. Overall though Somers Town is a very entertaining low key little film.