The Pebble and the Boy **
Dir: Chris Green. With:
Patrick McNamee, Sacha Parkinson, Christine Tremarco, Patsy Kensit. 101 mins.
Cert: 15
Quadrophenia love dies hard. After July’s ill-fated cast
reunion To Be Someone, there follows this humdrum standalone from the
sentimental end of British cinema’s Poverty Row, again seeking to capitalise on
residual fondness for all things Mod. The star’s a scooter: a nifty runaround
in Man City colours with two dozen rear-view mirrors sprouting from its front
end, it’s a worthy steed for Patrick McNamee’s callow latter-day knight John
Parker (geddit?) as he retraces his late dad’s tyretracks from Burnhamland to
Brighton. This journey – and the rite-of-passage it represents – encompasses
legends of old Jam gigs, 1980s songs picking up where the first Mods left off,
and cameos from associate producer Patsy Kensit and Eldorado’s Jesse
Birdsall. Those mirrors prove symbolic of an entirely backward-looking
enterprise.
A prolific writer-director
whose Me, Myself & Di opened back in June, Chris Green is at least
caught on more crowdpleasing form than he was circa 2018’s Strangeways Here We Come, one of the most aggressively off-putting films I’ve ever reviewed
in these pages. It’s hard not to feel predisposed to something that opens with
Secret Affair’s “My World”, sets a moped montage to the Style Council’s “Speak Like a Child” and stops the action dead so everyone can have a mini-mosh to The Chords’ “Maybe Tomorrow”. Yet the sounds far outstrip the sights. With
clearance fees devouring his budget, Green resorts to shooting in cramped
kitchens and overcast lay-bys. For a supposedly eye-opening travelogue, the
scenery remains thoroughly middle-of-the-road.
Well talking about getting it wrong! Congratulations for a misguided review!
ReplyDelete