The Selfish Giant

Scrapheap Challenge

Sharing a lineage with the best of British socio-realist cinema, Clio Bernard’s heavy-hitting portrait of the modern British underclass entitled The Selfish Giant is as bleak as they come.

What makes Bernard’s film (in only her second directorial credit to date) so particularly troubling, is that it sheds yet more gloomy light on how many of the social ills addressed by the likes of Shane Meadows’ Thatcher-era opus This is England, and even Ken loach’s seminal 60’s drama Kes, still prevail today. Without ever being overtly political The Selfish Giant, in its uncompromising portrayal of existence on the harsh periphery, seethes with anger, desperation and pain, and so can’t be seen as anything but a biting critique of Cameron’s ‘Big Society’ ideal.

At first it’s hard to believe the locale of The Selfish Giant, a council estate in Bradford, represents a portion of the country in the 21st century, so destitute and deprived are the people who live there. But this is actually a depressingly real vision of present day inner city life and, disturbingly, one that’s perhaps not too far removed from the Victorian squalor known to Oscar Wilde as he wrote the short children’s story from which the film takes its cues. Bet against the Visit Yorkshire Tourism Board using it in any promotional material.

Though the estate is not exactly the best place for children to thrive, it’s home for best mates Arbor and Swifty played with disarming honesty by newcomers Connor Chapman and Shaun Thomas. Arbor is a potty-mouthed problem child whose frequent violent outbursts and lack of concentration at school get him into regular trouble. Swifty is less oppositional, but generally happy to twag from the confines of the classroom and doss about all day with his friend. Together they drift aimlessly amongst the kerbside detritus of broken household appliances, roaming the surrounding wilderness of neglected fields backing onto looming power stations and open railway tracks.

With their teachers unable to get through to them, neither boy has much in the way of adult support at home either. Arbor has an absent father, a drug addict older brother and a mum who struggles to act as an authority figure to her unruly sons. Meanwhile Swifty is living below the breadline with a dad who maltreats him and the rest of his many siblings in a way that borders on child abuse. It’s no great wonder then, that after being permanently excluded from school, they gravitate toward a local scrapyard owned by the ironically named tough-nut Kitten (Sean Gilder), especially when it offers the pair a chance to generate some much needed fast cash.

The youngsters stick out like sore thumbs against the jagged metal hills of this urban wasteland, managed by burly men with worn faces and hard eyes. But it’s somewhere Arbor and Swifty feel they belong – Arbor’s exclamation ‘I’m a scrappor me’ is telling of his desire to have purpose, even if it means working in an environment that encourages him to steal.

Despite the sobering context, as the unlikely duo scour the area for scrap, bickering, arguing and laughing along the way, Bernard makes room for some genuinely funny moments. This is mostly down to the quite astoundingly natural and easy performances of Chapman and Thomas, who repeatedly outshine their older acting counterparts. It’s also here that Bernard’s lingering shots of rural tranquillity, interspersed with scenes at the eyesore scrapheap, become most pronounced, showing flecks of rustic beauty within a dreary post-industrial landscape.

Initially, the enthusiasm and naivety of the boys cloud any realisation that they are being used by Kitten. However being sharp, street-wise lads, they eventually begin to suspect foul play. When Arbor (tinged with a hint of jealousy after Kitten chooses Swifty to race his prize horse) accuses Swifty of being too soft for not wanting in on his plan to get their own back, cracks start to appear in the friendship.

From here it’s obvious things aren’t going to end well, but any premonitions of the seemingly inevitable tragic consequences of the story still can’t prepare you for how shocking they turn out to be. Grim isn’t the word. Bernard doesn’t pull any punches either, pilling on the hopelessness without offering any clear cut resolution. The final sublime images could perhaps, maybe, possibly offer the most minuscule sliver of redemption, but even then Bernard leaves things open to interpretation. The effect is almost unbearably moving, capping off a film that is bound to linger in the mind long after the final credits roll up.

Full of upsetting home truths about a regularly unseen, but very real world, inhabited by very real people The Selfish Giant is a difficult watch, but watch it you should. Raw, mesmerising, gut-wrenching: it is one of the most powerful and affecting films you will see this year.