Starring: Louise Brealey, Annabel Scholey, Celyn Jones, Emily Fairn, Sorcha Cusack
Director: Janis Pugh
Country: UK
UK Distributor: Studio Soho
There was a time when you couldn’t move for British films set in the industrial north, with the likes of Billy Elliott and The Full Monty charming audiences around the world. But in the post-Downton age, there’s been a dearth of these movies, with the upper-classes seen as much better fodder for a solid British export. Maybe that’s why this lesbian-chicken-factory-social-comedy-quasi-musical-drama (is this a sub-genre in the making?) has had such a small-scale release, when it really does hold its own against the giants in that genre.
Helen (Brealey – Sherlock, Clique) works in a chicken factory in North Wales, called ‘Chuck Chuck Baby’. She’s surrounded by a group of wonderful women, with whom she shares a raucous camaraderie, but the reality is that her job is menial, her wages low and her home life extremely difficult. Helen’s husband (Jones) has had a baby with a younger woman (Fairn), who now lives in their same house. She wants to leave but stays to care for her ailing mother-in-law (Cusack), whom she still adores.
When she was younger, Helen had harboured a secret crush for classmate, Joanne (Scholey – Being Human). When Joanne returns to live in her town once more, she reveals to Helen that she had always reciprocated these feelings. Subsequently, the despondent housewife is forced to confront her life and her future, choosing between what she felt was her destiny and what she can now see as a glimmer of hope.
The set-up in her home is amusing and heartbreaking in equal measure. Fairn’s chav-zilla of “the other woman” has angular Scouse-brows, matched only by the thickness of her dense Scouse accent. Her husband is utterly unpleasant, and this pairing have the feel of Matilda’s parents, where their Roald Dahl levels of unpleasantness have made then somehow comedic. But yet the way they speak to Helen is so unbearably unpleasant, leaving her bereft and broken and wretched. In the film’s compelling opening, we watch as she bellows along to Neil Diamond’s ‘I Am… I Said’, a cathartic release of her guttural feelings, channelled through these upsettingly appropriate lyrics.
This film isn’t a musical per se, but it does revel in several musical numbers, mostly instigated by characters singing along to songs on the radio, which then turn into full production numbers. These joyful moment act as Brechtian escapism, breaking up this otherwise painful story with gleeful nuggets of fun and joy. And these songs are, without doubt, the film’s absolute highlights.
Louise Brealey is a revelation in this role, vulnerable but strong, transfiguring before our eyes from a broken woman to an Amazonian warrior. Empowering, compelling and completely inspirational, this is the kind of role that should be the making of any actress. And the narrative of a middle-aged woman embracing her sexuality is something we don’t see on film that often. It is a shame that its final act sags a little, but there is so much to champion that this almost doesn’t matter. And it’s a superb debut from director Pugh.
This film’s hardened northern exterior masks a beautiful beating heart at its centre. A wonderful film that’s as exultant as it is gloomy, this is one of the best British movies of this year.
UK Release: Out now to watch on VOD on BFI Player, released by Studio Soho
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