‘I’m nothing like Jimmy…’
Shane Meadows is one of the UK’s most beloved filmmakers. Known primarily for This is England and the subsequent TV spin offs, Meadows also has high quality feature films like Dead Man’s Shoes in his repertoire. He is one of those directors who has got to a point where people will watch anything he releases. The Shane Meadows brand is a seal of quality, as seen most recently in 2019’s excellent The Virtues. However, it wasn’t always thus…
Shirley (Shirley Henderson) reluctantly stands at the centre of a love triangle also containing Jimmy (Robert Carlyle) and Dek (Rhys Ifans) – a pair of men who are, quite frankly, both dickheads. Shirley herself is aloof and lacking in charisma, sharing zero chemistry with either Jimmy or Dek.
This results in a film that is very difficult to care about. It’s a comedy drama that is neither funny or dramatic. The characters are larger than life, but somehow mundane at the same time. The performances are average. Ifans proves once again that he is incapable of creating a character who has any semblance to real life, Carlyle and Henderson sleep through their respective roles with little commitment to the cause. The whole thing is a bit of a forgettable mess.
This being Meadows, there are some saving graces. The plotting remains compelling throughout and the pacing is perfect, but straight up comedy is an awkward fit for a director who has brought us some of British cinema’s darkest moments, and he never really pulls it off here.
Once Upon a Time in the Midlands is undoubtedly a director still finding his feet, but it is also comfortably Meadows’ worst film.