This is England: England's Answer to Easy Rider

In the first few minutes of This Is England, we're treated to a montage of everything 80s. Starting off with the likes of Knight Rider and the mass production of compact discs, it then travels to Margaret Thatcher and the Falklands war. This is director Shane Meadows' vision of not just that time period, but also England as a country. Comparable to Easy Rider's revealing portrait of America, This Is England defines a nation through the eyes of one generation.

New talent Thomas Thurgoose gives one of the most impressive child debuts in a long time, as 12-year-old Shaun-a thin disguise for the writer/director Shane, whose own childhood experience was the basis for the movie-who is befriended one day by a gang of older skinheads led by the goofy and charming Woody (Joseph Gilgun). If you have any pre-conceptions of what skinheads are like, the gang's first impression will shatter that. A quick research can tell you that the culture was started by both blacks and whites, as a youth movement that championed reggae music and favored unity; only to be tainted later on by racists. Woody's gang is funny, warm, and extremely friendly. They take care of each other in the sweetest ways, and they hate it when someone is bullied around. They also have a Jamaican guy in the group named Milky (Andrew Shim). Far from being a token inclusion, Milky becomes the source of tension throughout, and later on the central focus of the film's themes.

Shaun, who grew up without the dad that died in the war, sees a father figure in Woody, and it's cute to see him step into the Doc Martin shoes of a skinhead. But the culture then peeks out its dark side when Woody's old friend, a much older skinhead named Combo (Stephen Graham), returns from a 3-year prison stint. Combo believes that immigrants are taking jobs away from real Englishmen, and begins to recruit people off Woody's gang. Proving how impressionable kids can be, especially one searching for a guiding father like Shaun, the little boy eats up Combo's preaching. Switching his allegiance, Shaun even follows Combo to join the Nationalist party, much to Woody's dismay. Shaun's journey is not unlike the history of the skinhead movement itself.

This Is England avoids the flaky and clichéd boy-enticed-by-outlaw-then-regrets-it route by actually giving Combo a personality other than your typical thug. All hate, even racism, come from somewhere. This film makes sure to drop plenty of hints on why Combo is so full of hate and why he has such a strong belief. Compared to the thin and cartoonish "My daddy was killed by a black guy so now I hate blacks" origin story of Edward Norton's character in American History X, Combo is a much more complex personality. He even convinces himself that he is not racist, just patriotic, but his search for a place to belong is so lost that he needs a target to lash out.

The scenes of him and Shaun sharing their personal pain and hopes for the future of England are tender and sincere, but at the same time disturbing as all hell. Shane Meadows uses this as a commentary on the ugly side of patriotism. Shaun's dad died for his country in a joke war nobody remembers today, while Combo's Anti-Thatcher belief that Englishmen shouldn't have been deployed into foreign conflicts in the first place gave him an excuse to bully foreigners. With such a limited setting, Meadows managed to say something that encompasses a big chunk of England's social conflicts.

Stephen Graham's acting as Combo definitely steals the show even in a film packed with very strong performances-including the young Thurgoose. Like his previous film, the revenge drama Dead Man's Shoes (my personal pick for best British film of the past few years), Meadows takes a very raw and loose approach to his directing, giving the actors room to perform organically as if it were actually happening. The result is so brilliantly convincing that I started feeling involved with the gangs themselves, be it smiling along with Woody's friends or wincing along with Combo's victims. I don't know if Meadows was inspired by Alan Clarke or not, but he is definitely suited to be Clarke's successor with their similarly sharp and relentless social commentary being told in such brave, realistic manner.

And just like how Clarke's equally provocative skinhead film Made in Britain launched a young Tim Roth's career, I hope that this is just the beginning of a remarkable career for Thurgoose.

Cross-posted from: JustPressPlay.net