Just Jim

If you enjoy black comedy, deliberate pacing, and having to come to your own conclusions on plot ambiguity - think Barton Fink for example - then you're in for a treat. If you need a neatly resolved ending, you'll be frustrated. As the former I loved it. Excellent direction, photography, and score; tight performances - I'm looking forward to his next. Makes a good double-bill with Aki Kaurismäki's "The Match Factory Girl".

A lonely teenagers life is transformed upon the arrival of his American next door neighbour.

This is a very quirky dark comedy that will not appeal to everyone. After a relatively sluggish start setting up the situation things pick up with the arrival of mysterious American Emile Hirsch.

Emile Hirsch is great and Craig Roberts who bears an uncanny resemblance and acting style to Martin Freeman is also superb as the unpopular kid trying to improve his social standing.

Despite the good acting this is a hit and miss affair. There are some good ideas here and some good scenes but too many of them fall flat. The pacing isn't great and it seems to bounce from place to place without any real direction.

Overall this isn't a bad film it's just a bit too way out there for my taste and I doubt I'd watch it again.

In a Welsh valley a socially inadequate schoolboy is bullied and has no friends. Then a mysterious American moves in next door and promises to turn him into a cool teenager.

Low budget black comedy set in the Rhymni Valley, this is a writing and directing debut by Craig Roberts who plays the title character. Full use is made of the local scenery but, while the film has its moments, overall it lacks a spark.

This is the directorial debut for Craig Roberts who also wrote this and starred in it – which is never a good idea. He takes the character he has played before in the likes of – the admittedly very good – 'Submarine' and plays him, again only in Wales. There are liberal scattering of clichés throughout and the only reason this is in Wales? It was co funded by The Welsh Film Board.

The plot is Roberts plays Jim whose best mate has stopped talking to him and his dog goes missing and then Emile Hirsch moves in next door and is ultra cool. Despite this Hirsch actually has time for him until strange things start happening and then Jim gets to grow a pair.

Now to call this slow is putting it mildly, it wears its quirky heart shakily on its loner sleeve from the start but the script is just so uninspiring and there are some massive plot holes too. I found this to be as funny as a phone directory and equally unedifying. Never write direct and star in your own vanity project. I admire Hirsch for making such films he did the same in 'Prince Avalanche' which is actually better than this. There is clearly a market for these types of films and there are some good parts to it but rating it as 'ok' is still being generous. If in doubt go for a rental – preferably getting some one else to pay for it – that way the disappointment smarts less.

It's quite a lonely film. Jim is clealy a very strange guy who doesn't connect with society until an American comes by to teach him the ways of being cool.

Then it all goes a bit weird. I can't work out which parts are dreams or real. The visions and then the reality. It's an isolated movie and it starts to look into bullying and important social issues but then goes on a complete tangent.

I'm just ending-up finishing lost. The ending is as empty as it started without it actually filling anything. I'm struggling to understand this concept and why it was done. It's a shame. Just rather meaningless despite the good original idea.