In many ways, Shane Meadows’ Somers Town is an unassuming and innocuous follow-up to his critical smash, This is England. With Somers Town, the stakes are considerably lower as Meadows relates the ephemeral bond between Tomo (England’s star, Thomas Turgoose) and Marek (Piotr Jagiello) instead of attempting to encapsulate a personal view of a historic moment in Thatcherite Britain.
The film has no particular profound insights to offer, save for the notion that the traditional family model is a failure, and the best solution is undoubtedly the one you make for yourself. However, since it’s a sweet, funny and relatively quiet film, the lack of Big Thoughts is easily overlooked. Meadows has given himself a much-needed break, and it’s a very satisfying one at that.
Both This is England and Somers Town circle around the paradox of “community.” Marek and his father, both Polish immigrants, keep to themselves, bonding only with shy Marek’s macho Pole buddies who are a little too boisterous for him. Tomo, a gutsy 16-year-old huckster from the Midlands, gets himself pummeled because, well, he too is the typical Meadows’ outsider. They make quite the pair, ogling Maria the local waitress (Elisa Lasowski), finding new ways to get cash for nothing and perpetually killing time. Eventually, because they’re teenagers, everything leads back to sex, making for some of the most satisfying bits of adolescent dead-air dialogue since Superbad.
Paul Fraser’s script isn’t nearly as bombastic as any of the Apatow cabal’s constant dick jokes, but he does include a hopeful—but non-existent—ménage à trois between the two wannabes and their French dreamboat Maria that’s as close to a stable family environment as it gets. Rounded out by Graham (Perry Bronson), Marek’s happy-go-lucky loser of a neighbor, the ersatz family is held together by nothing more than their fear of being without each other, unwilling to define themselves by anything more than their refusal of loneliness.
In true Meadows fashion, foreigner Marek is the one to embrace the snotty little kid from the Midlands, whose only defense is his dreamy hedonism and listless denial. The outsiders bring the alienated insider into the fold, but whether or not it’s a friendship of necessity or of convenience is unclear. Tomo claims to be an orphan, but that’s probably just talk. He’s not like This is England’s Shaun, who’s trying to pick up with the local skinheads where his absent father left off. There’s no national identity involved here either, making Meadows’ clumsy and protracted montage sequences infinitely more tolerable this time around because they’re not trying to carry patriotic burden.
Tomo’s notion of what a girlfriend is differs from Marek’s, leading him to comically throw up his hands in disgust at Marek’s presentation of the Polish courting custom of not kissing their girlfriends. “Well, you’re not in Poland anymore. This is England,” Tomo says matter-of-factly. But a national identity based around sexual or familial frustration just won’t do.
Afterward, Marek’s dad’s drinking buddies egg the bashful artiste on about how he wanks off, sending him to his room in a hurry. Tomo and Marek are just teens, and Maria is just a girl that makes them feel good—not a national island unto themselves. The film’s constant use of black-and-white imagery suggests a more severe overtone to the story, but somehow the boys make it out of the film with their unformed senses of identity intact—with their whole touch-and-go blue-collar lives ahead of them.
The film has no particular profound insights to offer, save for the notion that the traditional family model is a failure, and the best solution is undoubtedly the one you make for yourself. However, since it’s a sweet, funny and relatively quiet film, the lack of Big Thoughts is easily overlooked. Meadows has given himself a much-needed break, and it’s a very satisfying one at that.
Both This is England and Somers Town circle around the paradox of “community.” Marek and his father, both Polish immigrants, keep to themselves, bonding only with shy Marek’s macho Pole buddies who are a little too boisterous for him. Tomo, a gutsy 16-year-old huckster from the Midlands, gets himself pummeled because, well, he too is the typical Meadows’ outsider. They make quite the pair, ogling Maria the local waitress (Elisa Lasowski), finding new ways to get cash for nothing and perpetually killing time. Eventually, because they’re teenagers, everything leads back to sex, making for some of the most satisfying bits of adolescent dead-air dialogue since Superbad.
Paul Fraser’s script isn’t nearly as bombastic as any of the Apatow cabal’s constant dick jokes, but he does include a hopeful—but non-existent—ménage à trois between the two wannabes and their French dreamboat Maria that’s as close to a stable family environment as it gets. Rounded out by Graham (Perry Bronson), Marek’s happy-go-lucky loser of a neighbor, the ersatz family is held together by nothing more than their fear of being without each other, unwilling to define themselves by anything more than their refusal of loneliness.
In true Meadows fashion, foreigner Marek is the one to embrace the snotty little kid from the Midlands, whose only defense is his dreamy hedonism and listless denial. The outsiders bring the alienated insider into the fold, but whether or not it’s a friendship of necessity or of convenience is unclear. Tomo claims to be an orphan, but that’s probably just talk. He’s not like This is England’s Shaun, who’s trying to pick up with the local skinheads where his absent father left off. There’s no national identity involved here either, making Meadows’ clumsy and protracted montage sequences infinitely more tolerable this time around because they’re not trying to carry patriotic burden.
Tomo’s notion of what a girlfriend is differs from Marek’s, leading him to comically throw up his hands in disgust at Marek’s presentation of the Polish courting custom of not kissing their girlfriends. “Well, you’re not in Poland anymore. This is England,” Tomo says matter-of-factly. But a national identity based around sexual or familial frustration just won’t do.
Afterward, Marek’s dad’s drinking buddies egg the bashful artiste on about how he wanks off, sending him to his room in a hurry. Tomo and Marek are just teens, and Maria is just a girl that makes them feel good—not a national island unto themselves. The film’s constant use of black-and-white imagery suggests a more severe overtone to the story, but somehow the boys make it out of the film with their unformed senses of identity intact—with their whole touch-and-go blue-collar lives ahead of them.
