{"id":1523,"date":"2011-11-06T13:08:40","date_gmt":"2011-11-06T13:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/?p=1523"},"modified":"2011-11-06T13:08:40","modified_gmt":"2011-11-06T13:08:40","slug":"lff-2011-junkhearts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/drama\/lff-2011-junkhearts\/","title":{"rendered":"LFF 2011: Junkhearts***"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a> Tinge Krishnan<\/a>\u2019s debut British feature was the toast of this year\u2019s London Film Festival, with newcomer Candese Reid<\/a> winning ‘Best British Newcomer’ for her portrayal of rougher sleeper Lynette. Junkhearts<\/a><\/em> is a prime example of British independent filmmaking in grim motion, unsurprisingly falling into the gloomy, socio-political drama category that is so often prevalent at Festival time.<\/p>\n

Former soldier Frank (Eddie Marsan<\/a>) spends his days reliving the horrors he witnessed in Northern Ireland, when not walking to and from the local off licence near his east London estate to restock on booze and fags. On one such visit, he comes across black teenager Lynette (Reid) on the street outside, and although frosty at first, theirs is an unlikely companionship, almost father-daughter relationship that grows as Frank tries to help Lynette gain the confidence to rebuild her life. Unbeknown to him, her presence is less that honest and is about to make his haunted world worse than it already is. Meanwhile, in more affluent surroundings, struggling businesswoman and single mother Christine (Romola Garai<\/a>) turns to drugs to cope with all the pressures of bringing up a child alone.<\/p>\n

While designed to once more unearth the ugliest of human nature and its self-destructive quality and the grimness of London\u2019s sink estates, Junkhearts<\/em> could be a reproduction of any urban sprawl\u2019s social ills. The two worlds of Frank and Christine seem totally unrelated, but there is one unifying theme of loneliness, an inner fear that transcends generations and class barriers. The trouble is, much as Krishnan\u2019s dark tale needs to portray Frank\u2019s world spiralling out of control, without any chop-and-change of scenery \u2013 so that we witness rock bottom for the healing process to kick in, any major impact the final scene might have is rendered quite unremarkable, as it takes so long to connect the relationship dots. It almost feels alien, like another film ending bolted on, or worse, as though a lot of this part\u2019s development is still lying on the cutting-room floor.<\/p>\n

Junkhearts<\/em> strengths are not its originality but \u2013 like many kitchen sink dramas \u2013 its actors who are presented with a chance to explore all depths of the human soul within its social reality. Marsan is naturally enthralling as tortured Frank, helped by Catherine Derry<\/a>\u2019s claustrophobic close-ups \u2013 the only question is one of continuity of Frank\u2019s skin condition that seems to change from one scene to the next.<\/p>\n

There is a nice twist when Frank first opens his front door to Lynette, as little is known about either, but what is known suggests Frank is less trustworthy, and Krishnan toys with us here. Even with the charitable moment of allowing Lynette to stay in his long-absent daughter\u2019s bedroom, there is an edgy and threatening sense to the cinematography that adds a putrid yellow tinge to Frank\u2019s living room environment to visually signify a malaise and untapped imminent danger ahead. Krishnan keeps this location as unsettled as her characters\u2019 moods, moving from homely to foreign from one minute to the next.<\/p>\n

Reid\u2019s Lynette seems effortless played. Reid does well to swing her emotions between bitterness and hope that allows her to believably depict Lynette\u2019s struggle with what she really wants out of life. But it is her turn opposite the controlling and manipulative drug dealer Danny, brilliantly played by Tom Sturridge<\/a> that allows both actors the opportunity to showcase their impressive talents. Although typical, Sturridge\u2019s drug dealer is atypical, in terms of appearance and maturity, making him imminently more menacing and unpredictable, as well as serving as a knife-twisting aid in rekindling Frank\u2019s deepest, darkest military nightmares. Garai is as expected, a vision of captivating beauty, however as Christine, more haunted and terrified at everyday-life than we are used to seeing her as self-assured Bel in The Hour<\/a><\/em>. Garai is wasted in this film\u2019s role, though, as her character snippets serve merely to make the flimsy end connection, rather than a vast difference.<\/p>\n

Junkhearts<\/em> is aptly named as the characters purge their tickers in their quest for redemption. Expect another bleak tale of inner-city hardship and self pity to begin with; this ultimately triggers the good ol\u2019 Blighty survival switch and manages to allow traces of ironic humour to punch through. Krishnan\u2019s first feature is a commendable start.<\/p>\n

3\/5 stars<\/strong><\/p>\n

By @FilmGazer<\/p>\n

Follow on Twitter<\/a><\/p>\n

**WATCH THE TRAILER HERE<\/a>**<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tinge Krishnan\u2019s debut British feature was the toast of this year\u2019s London Film Festival, with newcomer Candese Reid winning ‘Best British Newcomer’ for her portrayal of rougher sleeper Lynette. Junkhearts is a prime example of British independent filmmaking in grim motion, unsurprisingly falling into the gloomy, socio-political drama category that is so often prevalent at … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “LFF 2011: Junkhearts***”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1593,10],"tags":[3408,1668,1670,380,1666,1669,1672,1667,1671],"class_list":["post-1523","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bfi-lff-2011","category-drama","tag-bfi-lff-2011","tag-candese-reid","tag-catherine-derry","tag-eddie-marsan","tag-junkhearts","tag-romola-garai","tag-the-hour","tag-tinge-krishnan","tag-tom-sturridge"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1523","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1523"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1527,"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1523\/revisions\/1527"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmgaze.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}