Was laid up on Saturday, as a vicious little sinus infection took hold of me gulliver. This prevented me from joining Heidi and Ruby as they ventured to a lake cabin and spent an afternoon boating and building sand castles on the beach. While this did afford me some time to feel sorry for myself and curse the ill fortune that was preventing me from sharing in the beach revelry, it also gave me enough time to catch a movie. In this case it was “This is England“, written and directed by Shane Meadows.

The film takes place in 1983 and does a wonderful job of evoking the time. It opens with a video montage showing clips of archetypical 80s events and objects: the Rubik’s Cube,  8-bit video games, the royal wedding, scenes from the Falklands War. There is a building that we see quite often throughout the movie with “Maggie’s a Twat” spraypainted on it in large, uneven letters.

That certainly was a powerful reminder of that time. What villians were in power! Both Maggie and our dear RWR had such a strong polarizing effect on people. For those of us strongly on the left, they were the people that we loved to hate. For all of their smarmy charm, both of them were butchers of men and caterers to the wealthy elite. Both had their questionable wars, Grenada and the Falklands, and both began the gutting of social programs.

It was a crazy time to be an adolescent. As all young people, we were just discovering ourselves and attempting to assert our individuality and independence. The events around us, with nuclear war always seeming to be around the corner, gave us a certain sense of powerlessness – knowing that we might be annihilated at any moment. That probably seems a bit like hyperbole, especially to those too young to remember the time, but it really isn’t. Ronald Reagan, in a famous incident, said the following during a sound check before his weekly radio address, “My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.” [Wikipedia] Reagan thought it a good joke. Some of us, to borrow the Queen’s phrase, we were “not amused”.

"This is England" cast

It is in this milieu that punk rock really came of age. It gave those of us without a strong voice a way to channel our anger and fear into something larger. We joined a tribe and screamed loudly over the din of screeching guitars that we wouldn’t take it any longer. There was tremendous appeal in it. It is this appeal that lures the protagonist of “This is England” into his new circle of skinhead friends.

Shaun, a ten-year-old boy, befriends a motley group of skins. These are not nationalist skins, but a loose group of revival skinheads that seemed more interested in companionship and the strength of the group than in politics. Shaun finds refuge from the relentless teasing at school and the loneliness and sadness he feels after his father’s death in the Falkland War. He becomes close with the leader of the gang, Woody.

The happy little group is fractured, however, when Woody’s friend Combo gets out of prison a changed man. Combo is a fierce, crazy bastard, played by Stephen Graham (who is excellent). In the pivotal moment of the film, Combo exhorts the members of Woody’s group to join him in fighting for the “true England” and join the National Front. Some members join him, including young Shaun. It all goes to hell from there.

While the movie doesn’t entirely hang together for me, the acting is excellent from the talented ensemble cast. It may be that the group of characters was a little large, given the scope of the action, such that many characters lacked depth. Shaun and Combo are the exceptions, as the audience really gets a good sense of what motivates and contributes to the vulnerable and angry spirit in each of them.

It is certainly good watching for those of us who remember the time and knew something of the subculture. For another good film which explores powerlessness and poverty in young men, check out Scum, starring a young Ray Winstone. That is a powerful, disturbing film.