In 2000, Jamie Thraves made a beautiful film called The Lowdown, then seemed to sink without trace. With Treacle Jr, he's had to start from scratch. In order to fund the project, apparently, he remortgaged his house.
The Lowdown's star, Aidan Gillen, dominates again as Aidan, a lisping, disaster-prone Irishman who gabbles his way into the life of chronically depressed architect Tom (Tom Fisher). Tom has just arrived in London, having left his wife and young baby in Birmingham. He's desperate to escape the attentions of Aidan and is horrified when he meets Aidan's abusive, cockney "girlfriend", Linda (Riann Steele). Yet, slowly, the two men form a bond.
Offbeat bromances are hardly new and Thraves takes fewer risks with the formula than you'd expect.
His film has some very clumsy - even patronising - moments. Crucially, I never believed in Aidan's relationship with Linda. And you know a script is in trouble when it throws an honest-to-goodness psychic into the mix.
Still, when we're allowed to ignore the plot, things improve immeasurably. Gillen vibrates with sadness (not since Will Oldham's performance in Old Joy have we witnessed such melancholy jitters) and Fisher is a worthy foil. Thraves's camerawork, meanwhile, is crisp and fluid, simultaneously unfussy and memorable (a day trip to the Horniman Museum is especially jolting). Tiny jump-cuts convey Tom's desperate state of mind. He needs to think but the thoughts don't link ...
Treacle Jr won't win Oscars or swell the bank balances of cast and crew. In other words, it ain't The King's Speech. But I'd choose it over Tom Hooper's film any day, because it shows a London I recognise. The title, by the way, refers to a kitten Aidan befriends.
Treacle Jr
Cert: 15
