Somers Town is an affectionate, coming-of-age comedy from director Shane Meadows. Shot in black and white and for an extremely low budget (mainly funded by Eurostar) it tells the story of teenage tearaway, Tomo (Thomas Turgoose), who runs away to London with nothing more than a few quid in his pocket and a bag of clothes over his shoulder. After arriving in the capital he’s mugged for his belongings late one evening by a street gang, and having lost everything he is left to try and chance his way around the city.
After meeting Polish immigrant, Marek (Piotr Jagiello), the two teenagers strike up a friendship, with Tomo somehow managing to blag his way into Marek’s home until he is up on his feet. When Tomo happens upon Marek’s secret collection of photos of a local café worker, Maria, the two youngsters set about trying to woo the young French waitress. However, despite being out of their league and by far their elder, Tomo and Marek find themselves falling in love with the same girl.
Thomas Turgoose Excels in Somers Town
Even though only 71 minutes long, Somers Town is a heart warming story from director Shane Meadows. It’s got all the charm of his 1999 film A Room for Romeo Brass, which brilliantly explored the troubled friendship of two boys growing up in the midlands. Only this time Meadows uproots from his usual midlands stomping ground, setting Somers Town in a London suburb. It’s brilliantly well written by Meadows and Paul Fraser (his long running co-writer) and has a hint of the director's trademark improvisational technique during many of the scenes involving Tomo and Marek.
Somers Town showcases the growing talent of Thomas Turgoose, who we last saw in Meadows’ award winning This Is England. He’s got a brilliant sense of comic timing and there are some great moments of humour between the two young characters, who culturally could not be further apart, yet in the big-smoke of London are both hopelessly lost. Tomo is the un-fettered likely lad with no-one and no-where to go and Marik is finding it difficult to settle in to his new country. Marik’s only real companion is his father, who works long hours leaving him home alone to fend for himself.
Living near Kings Cross Station, the two young men dream of being able to get away from their lives and end up hatching an agreement that - whenever they make enough money - they’ll board a train and go away together. Even if just for a weekend, and however unlikely the notion might seem given their lack of any means of an income, it’s their way of getting through a difficult time in their respective lives.
Then, just when Tomo and Marik feel as though they’re getting somewhere with Maria, they’re devastated to learn that she’s had to return to France to tend to sick relative. All of a sudden, the two boys' trip of a lifetime doesn’t seem so far away.
Somers Town Verdict
Somers Town is a really likeable addition to Shane Meadows’ collection of independent films. Being the veteran of over 100 short films from his early filmmaking days, Meadows is brilliant at being able to judge the pace of a movie, and although Somers Town could quite easily have been half an hour longer, the story never feels rushed in any way. Although not one of his most memorable films, Somers Town is more of a feel good offering than some of the harsh profiles of British working-class life that Meadows has produced in the past. But it certainly re-iterates how creative the Staffordshire-born director can be when given very little to perform with.
You get the impression that this has never bothered him though. His ability to tell a great story goes far beyond the limits of a small budget to the point where you could argue that Shane Meadows is the best British director of his generation.
Verdict: 4/5
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