‘Freedom at last…’
Bleak is a strange word to use when praising a film, and for many people, the concept of something being bleak and the process of being entertained are mutually exclusive. It depends what you want from your art, I suppose. A lot of people (let’s be honest… a lot of idiots) dismiss the music of Radiohead for being ‘too depressing’, for example. Heaven forbid that a song, or a film, or a book should make you feel something. Something other than slack-jawed satisfaction or manufactured sentimentality. This is why Richard Curtis is more popular than Shane Meadows. Many people don’t want to face the fact that life is bleak. Bleakness is all around us everyday, and while I don’t want to be beaten around the head with it, sometimes it is useful to be reminded of that fact. Anyway. What’s this again? Ahh yeah a film review, here we go…
Lynn (Roxanne Scrimshaw) and Lucy (Nichola Burley) have been best friends since childhood. When a terrible tragedy strikes the working class housing estate in which they live, thrive and survive, their friendship will be pushed to the very limit.
I’ve already namechecked Shane Meadows so it would be remiss of me not to mention Ken Loach as well. First time writer/director Fyzal Boulifa comes from that same school of kitchen sink realism as the aforementioned, but there is also no doubting that Lynn + Lucy has a vision all of its own. Meadows is more powerful and Loach more accomplished, but there is an argument that neither of them have produced something as real as this. Something as raw.
Part of this is down to an incredible performance from first timer Roxanne Scrimshaw, and part of it is down to Boulifa’s ability to let the audience work things out for themselves. The supporting cast do a good job as well with Burley selling various facets of Lucy’s fractured personality, and Jennifer Lee Moon doing a sterling job as stereotypical ‘mean girl’ Janelle.
Lynn + Lucy is not an easy watch, but then, it’s not supposed to be. As the Dread Pirate Roberts once memorably declared to Princess Buttercup all those years ago “life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something…”