A Room for Romeo Brass **
Rated on a 4-star scale Screening venue: Cornerhouse (Manchester) Released in the UK by Alliance Atlantis on February 4, 2000; certificate 15; 90 minutes; countries of origin Canada/UK; aspect ratio 1.85:1
Directed by Shane Meadows; produced by George Faber, Charles Pattinson. Written by Paul Fraser, Shane Meadows. Photographed by Ashley Rowe; edited by Paul Tothill.
CAST..... Andrew Shim..... Romeo Brass Ben Marshall..... Gavin 'Knock Knock' Woolley Paddy Considine..... Morell Vicky McClure..... Ladine Brass Frank Harper..... Joseph Brass Julia Ford..... Sandra Woolley James Higgins..... Bill Woolley Bob Hoskins..... Steven Laws
"A Room for Romeo Brass" is alternately a tender suburban comedy and a harsh cautionary tale about a violent psychopath. Yes, that is as weird as it sounds. On my way out of the screening, I glanced over a synopsis which described the movie as a "tender coming-of-age tale". Thank goodness that's an inaccurate description -- if coming-of-age were as unsettling as this movie, most people would commit suicide before getting out of high school.
The movie takes place in Nottingham, where we meet two schoolchildren, Romeo (Andrew Shim) and Gavin (Ben Marhsall). The two exchange playful insults, but are close, really, spending every day together and depending on each other's moral support to get through their hardships: Romeo has been abandoned by his father, except for occasional visits which provoke huge family rows; Gavin is awaiting a serious back operation.
Early in the story, the boys are involved in a fight with two older lads, which is broken up by the quaint Morell (Paddy Considine), a scruffy chap who tells odd stories and seems somewhat clueless as to how most people behave. When dropping Romeo home, he meets the lad's sister Ladine (Vicky McClure), is instantly attracted to her and proceeds to pester her for a date.
Feeling sorry for this social misfit, Ladine eventually agrees, which is a mistake, as it makes him a permanent fixture around the neighbourhood. He befriends Romeo, but secretly obsesses over Ladine and threatens Gavin's family, in sinister scenes which reveal Morell to be an angry, disturbed individual. But at times his phoney accent, conversational tangents and shifty body language are presented as comic. I wouldn't have minded if the film had started in this vain and then gradually become serious, but even after the introduction of danger, the film still feels able to dart in and out of tomfoolery.
At first this is embarrassing; it goes on long enough to be repellent. Things get confusing, too, in terms of the characters' interaction with each other. We never see Romeo and Gavin fall out, for example, but halfway through the movie they suddenly start avoiding each other, then start speaking awkwardly, and finally become mates again. Eh?
Each scene is involving in itself, whether funny, creepy, or whatever, but the movie as a put-together whole doesn't go anywhere or make a whole lot of sense. Is there a point to this juxtaposition of dark terror and light humour? The director is Shane Meadows, whose feature debut was the excellent "TwentyFourSeven" (1998), a straightforward, moving story of a boxing instructor helping the kids in his area stay on the straight and narrow. We'll have to take "A Room for Romeo Brass" as a case of the Sophomore Slump -- the jinx that often affects directors of terrific first films, making their second ones muddled and odd.
COPYRIGHT(c) 2000 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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