User reviews

This film is a clumsy, ugly adaptation of a beautiful, vivacious book. The story and characters, Soho circa late 1950's, are infinitely cinematic on the page of Colin Wilson's book yet paradoxically this film is devoid of any discernible atmosphere and the story is delivered with absolutely no performance value, the cast are possibly the most inept ensemble ever seen. The cause of Free Cinema is hitched to the narrative, it seems the director misconstrues this as a license to make a bad film, which is exactly what this sprawling, inarticulate mess is.

I wanted to like this film, but it didn't take long until it became clear it's simply awful.

First, there is little attempt to create any sense of 1950s periodicity. Some token gestures are made with costumes (apparently, nearly everyone in the 1950s always wore long overcoats) but these are confused, for in some cases, character stylings look more 60s (e.g., documentarian Jo's three-quarter length raincoat and black tights).

Second, for a film so defined by place, it fails of evoke the look of Soho. While I can understand it could be expensive to get the permits for shooting in central London, repeatedly using the Lace Market in Nottingham is not a passable substitute. Towards the end of the film, a couple of moments are particularly anomalous. When James and Harry appear on the banks of the Thames, you can see the skyscrapers of a very modern London behind them. Ok, it isn't necessary to achieve 100% veracity, and so placing The French House on the corner on Old Compton Street can be forgiven (its actually on the southern end of Dean Street). Still, given the establishment's history (meeting place for the French resistance in WW2 etc.), placing ITALIAN flags on the outside signage (green-white-red instead of blue-white-red) is just bizarre!

Third, as other commentators have noted, the acting is just dreadful. There are many performances to dislike here but Chris Wellington as James Compton-Street is probably the least convincing. In the actors' defence, they are burdened by an unactable script that tries to be poetry at times, and occasionally throws in snippets from Comte de Lautréamont. Weird that a film that appears to want to celebrate film should fall back on that old cliché of believing literature, particularly poetry, are higher forms of expression. They are not. Linking back to the first point here, casting choices are also incongruous, with most of the ensemble looking entirely like early 21st century twenty somethings. It wouldn't have taken much, but a few haircuts might have helped create some period plausibility.

Finally, allusions to cinéma verité, Free Cinema, and Dziga Vertov (i.e., eye poster on a wall) appear gratuitous given the film's fumbling artifice.

Having worked in animated film production in Soho during the 80s, I know the place well, but you really don't need any real-world reference to know this is a bad movie.

I have to agree with Sebastian Noyes this is an awful adaption of the book. After hearing about the film I tried to see it. It took me over a year to track it down. It seems it was extremely hard to sell to a distributor and Behrens was extremely overprotective on who released it. ... I now know why.

The direction by Behrens is inept and lacks any form of atmosphere that you find in the book. The book has real characters. This does not. The direction of the actors was awful and most performances are not only wooden but not in the least entertaining. Trying to follow the character's story was like walking through treacle.

The cinematography was extremely poor for a film with a 2 million dollar budget. This is what you get for 2 million can you believe it? I felt sorry for some of the actors because I have seen some of them in other films and they are actually good actors and they acted well and convincingly in their characters in the other films but not in this film with this director.

In this film, it is hard to feel any empathy for any character. It drifts along in ineptitude. "Adrift" in Soho ... ironic.

Those who gave it 9/10 or such scores must be in it or work for Behrens. I cannot think of any other reason. It is interesting that some of the phrases used in the reviews are used in the press releases.

Use the 100 minutes of your life to do something else. AVOID.

Confession : This film lost me within the first two minutes due to my own personal dislike of highly stylised imagery in movies. Still, I wanted to like it and tried to give it a fair chance. It IS set in 50s Soho, after all - a place I know well, although long after its 50s & 60s heyday - and it purports to be something of a philosophical exploration of the intellectual and cultural scene there at the time. Surely there would be something there to win me over?

Nope. Firstly, the outdoor scenes look like... well... anywhere but Soho. Secondly, it fails almost completely to evoke the 1950s. There's no attempt to conjure up the atmosphere of time or place. Thirdly, erm... who are the characters again? Thirty minutes in and we barely know who they are or if we're supposed to like/hate/admire them, or even just find their dialogue interesting. It would be unfair to put that down to bad acting - it's more a result of bad writing and directing. The director knows what he's trying to create, but completely fails to communicate it to the audience.

Thirty five minutes in, and I'm reduced to fast-forwarding just to get the ordeal over with. I'm not familiar with the novel - it's probably vastly more interesting than this, and one day I might give it a try. If you've read it then you may get more out of the film than I was able to, but for anyone coming to it 'cold' then it's just uninteresting, self-indulgent, inept drivel.