The Kid

Directed by Nick Moran. Starring Natascha McElhone, Rupert Friend, Ioan Gruffudd, Ralph Brown, Bernard Hill, David O’Hara, James Fox, Tom Burke, Augustus Prew, Jodie Whittaker 16 cert, lim release, 90 mins

IN 2004, Kevin Lewis's misery memoir The Kid: A True Storyspent 18 weeks on the bestseller chart and inspired a rush of similarly themed autobiographies. A harrowing story of maternal abuse, grim circumstance and triumph against all odds, we're only surprised that this readymade fairytale hasn't graced our screens before now.

The director, Nick Moran, offers a parallel tale of redemption. One of the geezers from Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock and Two Smokin' Barrels,Moran, who was once famed for such shallow achievements as dating Denise van Outen and being named GQ's most stylish man, has lately co-written a West End hit and turned his hand to film directing with the critical wow, Telstar.

Unhappily, Moran's take on Lewis's book, though earnest and commendable, is a haphazard affair. Subtlety, or lack thereof, is a problem throughout. For every tender poignant moment The Kidhas to offer, there's another equally lumbering fumble.

Thus, the film-maker is clever enough to cut away to shadows as our young hero is repeatedly pummelled senseless, yet period detail is rendered in scythe-like swipes. (If the central character is recalling life in the 1980s, watch out for two-tone hats, Rubix cubes and Killing Joke on the soundtrack singing: “I’m living in the ’80s”.)

Some lovely, deft performances (notably Ioan Gruffudd’s caring schoolteacher, Augustus Prew’s awkward teenage Kevin, and Rupert Friend’s central turn) are delivered alongside some dreadful ones. Hidden under joke-shop dentures and chip-fat hair, Natascha McElhone, a hitherto reliable actor, plays Kevin monstrous mum like she’s Alfred Steptoe in drag.

The nuts and bolts of the story remain powerful. Who could fail to be moved by the sight of a child locked in a room? Or the notion of a young man who wants to be a stockbroker but instead drifts into a criminal underworld, where he plies his trade as a bare-knuckle boxer? There is, however, an inherent problem with such material. As anyone who sat through Angela's Ashesknows, the same story that keeps you turning pages can seem awfully oppressive or, worse, ludicrously melodramatic on film.

Too often, The Kidaccidentally recalls Monty Python's Four Yorkshiremen sketch. We kept expecting Natascha to turn to the camera and declare: "We used to have to get up out of the shoebox at 12 o'clock at night, and lick the road clean with our tongues." She doesn't. Alas.