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Sweet Sixteen
***1/2
Cinema Releases - October 18, 2002
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate 18. UK.
104 minutes. Directed by Ken Loach. Written by Paul Laverty. Starring Martin
Compston, William Ruane, Annmarie Fulton, Michelle Abercromby, Michelle Coulter,
Gary McCormack, Tommy McKee.
Sometimes even the positive reviews can get it
all wrong. According to BBC Online's Jamie Russell, this movie "rages against
the capitalist system which abandons its workers" and is "an ironic spin
on the Thatcherite ethos of entrepreneurial self-help". Meanwhile, a writer
called The Wolf from iofilm.co.uk whines that the director, Ken Loach, "continues
to follow in the neorealist tradition, which is beginning to look dated --
now that the legendary Polish director Krzystof Kieslowski is dead, there
are few exponents of the genre left, outside of Iran and
China."
Criticism like this is pretentious to the point
of embarrassment. Ken Loach's "Sweet Sixteen" is not about
economics, but about the way a life can spin out of control with terrifying
ease and speed. And as for the style, well, if it works, it works. Yes, Loach's
filmmaking technique is, as usual, stripped of obvious ornament. But it does
an astonishing job of reminding us of a teenager's point of view. Every shot
is framed to make adults seem like strangers and kids look like contemporaries
of little help. We're reminded exactly of the posture, scope and attitude
of fifteen-year olds. Stretches in this film do as good a job of evoking
youth as the work of Francois Truffaut.
"Sweet Sixteen" is about a Scottish kid named
Liam (Martin Compston) who hasn't been to school in nine months, spends his
days selling tax-free cigarettes down the local pubs, and has few people
to care for him other than his best friend, Pinball (William Ruane), and
older sister, Chantelle (Annmarie Fulton). The best friend is hardly a role
model and the sister will only help her brother out if he agrees not to bring
trouble home. "It's bad for Callum," she says over and over, referring to
the baby boy she is raising on her own at far too young an
age.
There's a granddad (Tommy McKee) and a stepfather
(Gary McCormack), but they're more used to shouting and beating than making
dinner or giving advice. Liam's mother (Michelle Coulter) is in prison --
she's getting out in ten weeks, on the day of her son's sixteenth
birthday.
The turning point in the movie comes early, when
Liam spots a caravan on the beach, on sale for £6,000. More money than
he can afford, but if only he could get that money, then that would be the
dream, wouldn't it? Peace for he and his mother, for his sister and nephew,
and maybe there would be a space for Pinball.
Selling cigarettes will not get the necessary
funds together, but Liam comes up with a plan: Steal the heroin that his
stepfather has been selling out of the house and peddle it to the neighbourhood
junkies. They're gonna get it anyway, he figures. The problem turns out not
to be just that this is dangerous in itself, but that Liam is too good at
it. I will not reveal exactly how the plot moves, but challenges arise that
have few solutions, and all these solutions lead down paths with no healthy
conclusions.
Liam is not a bad person, and it's scary and
heartbreaking how he becomes one of those guys that nobody wants to be without
realising it, without having time to step back and without any options of
escape. In ten weeks, the kid's life plunges into the deep end, and ultimately,
it turns out to be for nothing.
There is a scene in "Sweet Sixteen" where Liam
is dealing, and he gets jumped by a trio of thugs, forcing him to claw back
his supply and punch his way to some dignity. Similar scenes appear in most
movies involving drugs, but the effect of Loach's empathetic camerawork is
such that I didn't just feel sorrow or pity, but could identify with the
character under attack, and see, given the situation of Liam, how I might
have travelled into a similar position.
The performances in the film are full of naturalism,
humour and instinct, heightening our involvement and helping us see things
all the clearer. The accents are so thick that subtitles appear for the first
fifteen minutes of screen time, but even when slang and slurring fly past
us at breakneck speed, we get into the rhythms of conversations. Compston,
the young lead, got the part through a school audition. His closest brush
to fame before this was playing in a third-division football team -- he has
never acted before, but he carries the emotions of the film without a hint
of overplaying.
Loach also makes a comeback: Although many people
praised last year's "Bread and Roses", I was not among them; the film was
well-made and morally strong, but I felt that it failed because its plot
was based around the law, and its legal arguments were weak. "Sweet Sixteen"
is a film of truth and power because it's less about politics than
life.
COPYRIGHT©
2002 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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