Engrossingly downbeat melodrama about two disparate, down-on-their-luck characters who meet far from cutely in a dour bar in a no less moribund, off-season, brine-lashed Blackpool. While frequently grim, depressing, and emotionally raw, 'Away' never feels oppressively maudlin of self-consciously negative, since it is hard not to sympathize with the downwardly spiralling protagonist's desperate predicament, especially when they are given so much heart-wrenching humanity by gifted actors Juno Temple & Timothy Spall. This unflinchingly terse tableau of two profoundly damaged, doomily displaced souls cruelly ravaged by the arbitrary tempests of a hard-knock life ultimately proved to be a surprisingly edifying experience, and while the cinematically sweet conclusion my initially seem overly sentimental, it is, perhaps, wholly deserved. Fans of earnestly existential UK indie-dramas set within the darker interstices of everyday life should seek out talented film-maker David Blair's melancholy, darkly sardonic feature.
