Stars and Strikes | Starred Up Film Review

As promised, film reviews! A couple of weeks ago I saw the new Brit-Grit drama Starred Up on the big screen. I'm a huge fan of raw British dramas (This is England and A Clockwork Orange being the obvious examples), so I'm critical whenever a new one hits the cinemas. Here's what I thought of the Film 4's new cockney convict film.

Following Eric Love - a “starred up” 19-year old young offender - as he makes a transition from juvenile detention to an adult penitentiary, David Mackenzie’s new drama is an intensely graphic account of the British Prison system.

Starred up Eric goes from being a leader in Juvi to an underdog Adult Pen.

First things first, credit where credit’s due: Mackenzie and his cinematographer Michael McDonough need to be applauded for the astonishing aesthetic here. What’s best about it is how subtle it is - it’s not showy, there aren’t any frills, and most people will go the entire film without noticing it. That’s what makes it so fitting. The entire film is raw, and the shooting joins in with that element seamlessly.

As for performances, it’s worth an all-round applause. The cast is crammed with fantastic supporting actors, perfectly chosen for a movie this gritty. Rupert Friend fits into the cast nicely as an out-of-place voluntary therapist; Sam Spruell plays the textbook baddie as the Deputy Governor; and Ben Mendelsohn gives a truly incredible performance as Neville Love - a father struggling with his relationship with his son (his character development also involves a poetic little twist). And leading them all in the performance of a lifetime is Jack O’Connell as Eric Love. He’s indescribable, so I’ll start a new paragraph.

O’Connell has always played a rough-around-the-edges kid; the mouthy Pukey in This is England (2006), bad-boy Cook in Skins, and Marky in Harry Brown (2009) being his more notable performances. Eric Love might measure up to these roles in an aesthetic sense, and share Cook’s strife with his dear old Dad, but he shoots past them all in terms of emotional depth and character development. O’Connell has been truly lucky with Starred Up in having a writer like Jonathan Asser (who based the script on his experience volunteering at HM Prison Wandsworth) who could portray the character in a way so close to true life that it’s impossible not to feel for him. The flawless writing, combined with O’Connell’s breathtaking ability to play a role as if the script was based on his own life, creates a character which is indisputably moving scene to scene. But maybe it’s just because he’s gorgeous, who knows?

A final tip of the hat to the realism of the movie. As far as prison movies go, there is a potential to royally bugger up and portray the justice system as some kind of Clockwork Orange descendant, or to hit the nail so precisely on the head that the work will resonate for years (I’m talking Hunger, Bronson (both 2008) etc.) Starred Up might not share the historical value of these two, but it’s undoubtedly in the same league. Filmed principally in HM Prison Maze in Northern Ireland, where the infamous hunger strikes of 1981 took root, the grit in the movie literally seeps through the walls. It’s this setting - Prison Maze - which makes the comparison to Steve McQueen’s Hunger (based on the hunger strikes in Maze) so appropriate. That’s not to say they are identical, or even hugely similar - it’s the fact that they are so dissimilar which is great. Where McQueen focused on the history, the precise moment, Mackenzie gives a timeless and ever-true account of the inmate’s time. What they do share is an astounding open-wound style.

All in all, nothing less than you’d expect from Film 4.