This Is England

Last day to vote to help me decide what to watch next! So far it's looking like the Wire is gonna take it. Which is fine by me!

Do you ever look at your Netflix queue and start to feel burdened by the movies at the top, as if they are holding you back? You put them on there for some reason or another, but just never felt like watching them? For a long time, This Is England sat at the top of my queue. Finally one day when I couldn’t decide on what to watch I put it on. It was great! After I finished the movie I sought out the two follow up TV series, This Is England ‘86 and This Is England ‘88.

I’m sure I added it when I browsed past it’s cover; a bunch of early 80s punks standing in an alley. It reminded me of Suburbia, a terrible movie that I loved so much as teen just because it had all kinds of punks and rad bands in it. This Is England focuses on Shaun, a friendless 12 year old boy who lost his father in the Falklands War. After getting picked on by some older mod kids at school, he runs into a group of older deadbeat skinhead* and punker types led by Woody, who takes him under his wing.

And it’s great because they aren’t portrayed as these super cool kings of the subculture types. They’re that small group of kids in a small-ish city that look to the cool kids from the bigger cities. While in the bigger cities there were probably huge sub-groups with the punks separate from the skinheads which were separate from the mods who were separate from the rudeboys or whatever. In this group there’s a couple skinheads, but there’s also the punk guys and the goth girl and rudeboy guy and the rockabilly guy. At this point in my life I’m aware that trying to belong to any one of these subcultures is pretty silly, but This Is England reminds me so much of being a stupid kid trying to belong to some specific group while hanging out with the other kids that want to belong to another specific group.

Thomas Turgoose, who plays Shaun, gives probably the best performance by a child I've ever seen. Every reaction, every word that comes out of his mouth, seems absolutely genuine, as if he's experiencing everything that's happening as himself for the first time. The way he wines to his mother, how he adopts the older boys' slang ("Classic! That's Classic!") the way his brow furls when he is upset (and there's a lot for him to be upset about) seems so sweet and real that I couldn't help but identify with the kid and the guys who decide to take him in. It's painful to witness when he goes astray, because it's easy to project your little brother or some other family member into those little boots.

The film takes place in 1983, and the subsequent series take part in 1986 and 1988 (with This Is England 90 in the works). This span of time allows Shaun to grow up and the focus to shift to Woody (who is a mod now, of course) and his one true love, Lol. But everyone is back, including Stephen Graham (Al Capone from Boardwalk Empire) as Combo, the guy who really fucks things up for the group in the movie. The series can be hilarious a lot of the time, but it’s also so heartbreaking. A few moments are downright devastating. I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone, but if there’s something you know you can’t stomach talk to me and I’ll fill you in on what to expect. So upsetting, but ultimately worth it, in my opinion.

This Is England (the original movie) is available to stream on Netflix. This Is England ‘86 and ‘88 are currently hard to come by. They’re unavailable on DVD in the US, and I’ve yet to find a legit source to stream them online. I believe I watched them split into multiple parts with Spanish subtitles on YouTube. Kind of a pain but worth seeking out, I promise.

*Not to go too far down the rabbit hole, but I wanted to take a second and acknowledge the whole skinhead thing. I feel like everybody I know is aware that all skinheads aren't racist and began as a subculture of working class kids (many of them black) in the late 60's. However, it was always my impression that even though skinheads weren't (or aren't) always racist, they’re still mostly assholes. Which is one of the reasons this movie/show is great. It manages to zoom in on almost the exact point in time where these dudes became assholes. Or at least some of them, thanks to Combo.