Film review: Better Things
Rachel Mcintyre stars in Better Things
If you prefer your gritty realism with a hearty side order of humour, this may not be the film for you.
This was the first film for the majority of the actors involved, providing a raw, rough-edged cast of talent that suited the setting.
Focusing on the disparate, desolate lives of a group of suburban Brits in the Cotswolds, the drug use in Duane Hopkins’ film is graphic and very ugly, beginning with the death and subsequent funeral of Tess Baker (Emma Cooper) from a heroin overdose, and tracking the subsequent emotional collapse of her boyfriend Rob (Liam McIlfatrick).
As Rob’s friends endlessly debate whether he’s moved on from snorting to injecting heroin, the emphasis is clearly not whether to take drugs at all, but the way in which to take them. It’s depressing to see how accepted the drug taking is, with the majority of the younger characters snorting, popping, inhaling or injecting throughout the film.
Even agoraphobic teenager Gail (Rachel McIntyre) is reliant on subscribed drugs to make it through each day. Her other drugs of choice are the romance novels she seems addicted to.
Yet, beyond drug use, love is the central theme of the film, with many of the most touching scenes provided by the older characters Mr and Mrs Galdwin, played by real-life couple Betty and Frank Bench, and Gail’s nan (Patricia Loveland), each quietly lamenting the love they’ve lost.
Gail’s nan provides the sole moment of hope in the film by persuading Gail to venture outside and see the beautiful countryside surrounding their bleak lives, proving there are better things out there, if only you go looking for them.
Director and writer Duane Hopkins
Starring Emma Cooper, Liam McIlfatrick, Rachel McIntyre, Patricia Loveland, Betty and Frank Bench
Showing at Watershed, Bristol, from February 6th 2009, and cinemas nationwide
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