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Paul Andrew Williams's debut film, London to Brighton, is the kind of movie that reminds you just how good British cinema can be. Like Lynne Ramsay's Ratcatcher and Shane Meadows's Dead Man's Shoes, it proves that the gritty, working-class milieu commonly associated with filmmaking on these shores is not in itself a reason to despair.
Sure, there may have been some dismal films of this ilk made over the years, which is probably why Ken Loach and Mike Leigh, for better or worse, are still regarded as the twin titans of the UK film industry. But as with the best films from Hollywood, Europe or Asia, London to Brighton demonstrates that good film-makers simply make good films out of a world they understand; the fact that this one revolves around the gutter-classes of London is almost irrelevant.
It's important to state this because I can imagine a lot of people choosing not to see London to Brighton for this reason. It's certainly a bleak and harrowing effort. It depicts people living in misery, barely able to keep their heads above the poverty line, and it unfolds in a world in which cruelty is arbitrarily dispensed upon its inhabitants and innocence is corrupted at a criminally tender age. By rights it should be too raw and depressing to watch.
But it isn't. It's a deeply humanistic film which really empathises with its characters, rather than presenting them like spirit-crushed animals in a zoo. It has moments of real visual beauty, too - and I don't mean the kind of poverty-porn you find in prestige films where directors routinely create stunning images from human suffering. There are several almost throwaway shots in London to Brighton that quietly underscore the fact that people will always find small ways to alleviate the ugliness of their lives. It also boasts some quite phenomenal acting, the kind of stuff that immediately draws you in and keeps you transfixed throughout.
The film unfolds over 24 hours and Williams doesn't waste any time dropping us into his story. It's 3.07am in London and two girls are shown bursting into a public toilet, physically battered and bruised and emotionally distraught. Joanne (Georgia Groome), we'll soon learn, is a child who has just experienced the kind of horror no adult should ever have to experience, let alone a 12-year-old girl. With her is Kelly (Lorraine Stanley) - a prostitute with a face that has swollen-up like a watermelon. They're on the run and the desperation of their situation is immediately made apparent when Kelly, who should really be on her way to accident and emergency, turns a quick trick to get enough money for two train tickets to Brighton.
They're fleeing from a dismal and life-threatening situation, the full horror of which will gradually be revealed through Williams's masterful use of a nonlinear flashback structure. On their trail is Derek (Johnny Harris), Kelly's brutish pimp, who is desperate to find them before local gang boss Stewart Allen (Sam Spruell) makes him pay for what the girls did to his father - who enlisted Derek to find him a young girl who would conform to his sick sexual tastes.
I'm aware that using terms such as "pimp", "prostitute" and "gang boss" to define the characters immediately makes London to Brighton sound like a specific kind of movie. But the way these characters are presented elevates the film far above whatever narrow strictures these terms imply. Derek, for instance, is not a cartoon monster but an all-too-believable thug who is able to turn on a dime and be persuasively sweet and protective one minute and horrifically brutal the next. However, thanks to a fantastically judged performance from Johnny Harris, we also see that his whole persona is fuelled by the terror and desperation brought about by his own situation in life.
Similarly, Sam Spruell's turn as Allen is not another one-note psycho but a chilling display of controlled menace; from the way he carries himself to the way he talks, there's an implicit threat in everything he does. The film really belongs, though, to relative newcomers Lorraine Stanley and Georgia Groome. The former nails the shame Kelly feels at having involved Joanne in such a vile situation, but also captures protective maternal instincts which can't help but rise to the surface. It's a heartwrenching performance.
As for Groome, it's rare to find child actors who can so convincingly exist in a horrific adult world, while being able to remind audiences that they are still a child - but she does it effortlessly. Just check the scene where she gets off the train and makes a beeline straight for Brighton beach, it's a beautifully acted sequence that shows how quickly a measure of innocence can be restored to someone after it has been so brutally stolen. But that's par for the course. London to Brighton is a fantastic achievement on pretty much every level.
