Though inspired by Oscar Wilde’s religious allegory, there’s nothing genteel – or veiled – about documentary-maker turned writer/director Clio Barnard’s powerful portrait of austerity England. And nobody’s going to be redeemed either.
Schoolboys Arbor (the award-winning Conner Chapman in his first role) and Swifty (Shaun Thomas, every bit as good) are mates on a council estate in England’s industrial north. Life’s exceptionally bleak. Power stations loom, pylons bisect watery sunsets, and the dark satanic mills have, seemingly, all been closed.
Together they ‘borrow’ a horse from local scrap dealer Kitten (Sean Gilder) to steal cable and find rubbish to sell back to him. Though entrepreneurial and loyal, Arbor is otherwise a little sh-t, getting them both excluded from school. You can hardly blame him. His father’s dead, his mum’s at the end of her tether and he has frequent – ferocious – ADHD rages when he forgets to take his pills.
Though they’re only children, they soon find themselves getting by in the world of men, and it’s a violent, scary place. With a motto of “Pay up, or f-ck off!” Kitten is particularly pitiless, treating the boys like slaves, and making Shifty ride his horse in illegal – and lethal-looking – road races. The only bit of magic in the whole film is the stars above them as they ride at night, and you suspect those are CGI.
Something’s got to give, and it does, horribly. But then these are grim times, when films as beautiful as this must pass for sustenance. For the soul at least.
‘The Selfish Giant’ Movie Times
