"An urban fairytale" is the promoter's subtitle for Hettie McDonald's film, and, certainly it will appeal to those who like their social realism to come swathed in layers of life-affirming optimism.
A tentative romance between two 16-year-old schoolboys on a council estate in south-east London might not sound like particularly heart-warming material, but the combination of the humourous dialogue - scripted by Jonathan Harvey from his award-winning stage play, the brilliant sunshine and the attractive location - the Thamesmead estate - with its bright walkways, well maintained communal spaces, and balconies overlooking an artificial lake, help keep the darker side of life at a safe distance.
While the two boys, Jamie (Glen Berry), and Ste (Scott Neal) are played with great sensitivity, it is Linda Henry as Jamie's mother, Sandra, who commands our attention. Given all the best, most acerbic and witty lines, she could have strayed from a Mike Leigh film, and is reminiscent of that director's tough, funny women, surviving single parenthood and giving her well-meaning, neo-hippy lover (Ben Daniels) short shrift. Sandra's changing relationship with her son is the emotional core of the film, which is handled well, though at excessive length.
As might, perhaps, be from a debut film by an experienced theatre director, this is careful, unadventurous film-making, concentrating on the nuances of performance and characterisation rather than the visual or formal potential of the medium. While this results in a rather pedestrian, TV-drama-style narrative exposition that compares unfavourably with My Beautiful Launderette, which handled similar material with considerably more flair, its heart is in the right place; its celebration of love in all its forms and its undermining of the stereotype of working-class hostility to homosexuality should endear it to a wide audience.
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