NEDS (2010)

You know what the UK film makers have really become adept at making over the past decade?
Teen Movies. Not John Hughes rite-de-passage stories or that Twilight bs but hard-edged grimey tales like Fishtank or the superlative This Is England or softer 'brit-ish' fare like An Education. I've never seen a Peter Mullan film before (there was a double bill of his previous/first 2- The Magdalene Sisters and Orphans on Film4 last week but i zonked out) but i'd imagine he would be the best experienced person to make a Glaswegian coming-of-age story...


Man. NEDS has left me exausted but it's a great way to spend a few hours. 
John at 11 has entered high school, genuinely happy to study and read while everyone else is there to mess around. He's methodical and studious but because of his thuggish brother, his school want to tar him with the same brush by holding him back. 
2years later and he's excelling at school and now, others are  judging him based on his background but he's developing new friends in a gang, trading on his brother's name.
At it's core, this is a film about the attraction and corruption of violence. 
You never hear about the allure of violence. People don't generally talk about it but we all accept it vicariously through film or sport or books. We're all excited by it- it spices things up.
We draw the line on inter-personal violence but we've all been in situations at least once in our lives where we've felt the adrenaline of aggressing or being aggressed by someone. It's nothing a well-adjusted person would describe as pleasant or enjoyable but you're likely to remember it. NEDS is about submitting to violence as a lifestyle. It's not the first film about that- there's Fight Club and The Football Factory, maybe The Hurt Locker but this is the only one i recall that's about becoming violent at a formative age.
Conor McCarron playing John is phenomenal considering he has none or little experience and he has to carry the film. His casting must have been the biggest bet Mullan has ever made and it pays with massive dividends.
It feels like it goes without saying but Peter Mullan can really weave a hard story and while it's bleak, it's never depressing and not in a way that appears like he's given himself the juiciest role but Mullan just casts the most malevolent air across any scene he's in, as John's alcoholic abusive father. At one point, he enters a room and everyone stops what they're doing until he leaves and then they carry on. But better than his acting, which is no weak-link, is his direction.  He doesn't let you off with as much comedy as Shane Meadows does in This Is England (the film it's closest to stylistically) but NEDS has lots of funny moments. 
But you need those because when John sinks into violence, it completely changes his personality and the atmosphere in the film. He develops the sort of cold disconnection for violence reserved for paratroopers and it just wrecks his life. It's like watching someone's decent into drug addiction. You appreciate that getting into gang fights is exciting for John because of the camaraderie and recreational aspects but he starts using violence to solve all his problems and the results are irrevocable. 
NEDS is just a brilliant film about violence, where every act of violence has a lasting consequence.


I watched NEDS (2010) at the cinema.
My 2011 in Movies will return with Cold Sweat(1970)...