This Is England (Shane Meadows, 2007)
What is the film about?
This film follows a young boy called Shaun as he is pulled towards a group of skinheads. However, when Combo arrives after being in prison, things take a turn in the group and many have to choose which side they fall on.
The film opens with Shaun going to school on the last day of term. It is quickly established that he is not that popular in school through people mocking his clothes. However, he then comes across Woody and his gang of skinheads. They take him in their wing and Shaun starts to feel included in that group. Woody and Lol take on a very caring role of Shaun and at this point in the film everything seems quite nice.
However, when they are all at someone’s house after having a fun day out walking and swimming and stuff, things take a turn. When they hear a knock at the door, Banjo (who they do not know yet) comes charging through the door with a knife. However, Combo manages to make his triumphant return by ‘rescuing’ everyone. When everyone realised it is Combo he reveals that the whole thing was a prank.
Soon after, when the joy at seeing one of the gang return from a three year prison sentence starts to dissipate, Combo starts to tell the gang a story from when he was in prison. However, these views and stories are rooted in his English nationalism and racism and therefore distance members of the group.
Things go worse when Combo decides that it is time to bring up everyone’s favourite topic, the Falklands war. He starts to talk about the soldiers and is unaware and inconsiderate of how Shaun will react. Obviously, Shaun (whose father was killed in the war) reacts to this and starts to attack Combo. However, Combo is not fazed by a small child beating him up and (taking inspiration from how Claudius dealt with Laertes in Hamlet) uses this to manipulate him to share Combo’s ideology. Whilst this works for some, Woody and Lol and some others (and eventually Milky) leave.
Shaun gets closer to Combo and starts to see him as a father figure and becomes more involved with them and their ideology, as opposed to Woody and his group. This eventually leads them to attend a National Front meeting after which Combo throws Pukey out of the car and abandons him. This is because Pukey questions the racist ideology and nationalist ideology that the group has taken on. After this strengthening of their racist ideology, the group start to spread this through the use of graffiti and practically teach Shaun how to use the racist language they use. This escalates when they go into Mr Sandhu's shop and demand for supplies whilst using highly racist language. This is before Combo threatens Mr Sandhu with a machete. After this, they go to the birthday party with the supplies that they stole.
At this point in the film, Combo waits in his car for Lol on her way to work. She reluctantly gets in the car with him and he tells her that he has loved her since they had sex before he went to prison. He even made her a gift with Lol written on it. She tells him that she does not feel the same way about him at all and leaves him crying in his car.
To recover from this, Combo buys cannabis from Milky and then invites him over. Things will not go well. They seem to be getting on, but when Milky is happily talking about his family, Combo becomes enraged and starts to beat Milky up. Shaun defends Milky which makes Combo more annoyed and sends Shaun out. It then isn’t long before Meggy and Banjo are also told to leave. When Shaun comes back, Combo has started to regret beating Milky up over his stories about his family and asks Shaun for help in taking a badly beaten up Milky to the hospital.
After another montage, this one showing the Falklands war, Shaun is looking at the picture of his dad before his mum walks into the room. They have a conversation about the best holidays they have had and she reassures Shaun that Milky will be fine. After this conversation, Shaun walks to the boat on the grass again, but this time with the English flag that was given to him by Combo. He then walks onto the beach and throws the flag into the sea.
My thoughts
★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
I didn’t really know what this film was going to be like when I watched it, and didn’t know too much about it before watching it. When I had talked to someone else about the film, they had said how they really didn’t like the film, and that it was just uncomfortable to watch. This did make me hesitant to watch the film, but I was interested in seeing if I would agree with them. Before watching this film, we had seen a documentary about the skinhead movement which was fascinating. I had not known much about it, and this gave me a nice understanding of what the film might cover.
I was pleasantly (if that word can be used when talking about this film) surprised when I watched the film. Whilst the film is definitely uncomfortable in the later half of the film, I still managed to enjoy (again, is this the right word for what the film is about) the film. The first part was actually quite nice but then the film took a turn when Combo turned up. I think that altogether this was highly effective and led to a more interesting film. However, I did definitely enjoy the first part much more than the rest of the film. One thing that I especially loved about the film was the music. I had already listened to a lot of ska music and was so happy that it was included in this film. However, whilst I know that many like the composed music for this film, I found it very difficult to take that music seriously. Every time that the same music played, I just thought that it made everything too obvious in the scene. However, it wasn’t distracting enough for it to take me out of the scene. After watching this film, I am definitely interested in watching the series because I do want to know what happens to the characters because I think the film did a good job with building some connections between the audience and the characters (well, some of them more than others).