Sweet Sixteen

The worlds of Hollywood and of Ken Loach may be very different, but they are both equally predictable. If Hollwood made a film entitled 'Sweet Sixteen', you could be sure it would be a saccharine teenflick, starring either Molly Ringwald or Tara Reid. When Ken Loach makes 'Sweet Sixteen', you just know that the title is going to be bitterly ironic. When Hollywood makes films about the pursuit of dreams, they follow a familiar pattern: smalltown protagonist with big ambitions, usually played by Tom Cruise ('All the Right Moves', 'Top Gun', 'Days of Thunder', 'Cocktail', 'Jerry Maguire' etc.), manages to rise above his roots against all the odds and, through sheer maverick schtick and can-do attitude, becomes the embodiment of the American Dream of success, all the while smiling through big teeth.

When Ken Loach makes a film about the pursuit of dreams, you can be sure that an altogether grimmer alternative will be on offer, where dreams are fulfilled only by other people (Americans, for instance).Ken Loach's 'Sweet Sixteen' is set in an impoverished Glasgow suburb, and features accents so broad that it is subtitled for its first fifteen minutes to help the audience acclimatise. Following his usual practice of placing local unknowns in leading roles, Loach breaks down the distinctions between the realistic and the real, drawing highly convincing performances from all his cast. Martin Compston in particular, who dominates the film in his lead role as Liam, is a revelation. Liam is a fifteen-year old from a disruptive background who has a modest ambition: to purchase a £6000 caravan so that he can live there together with his sister Chantelle (Annmarie Fulton), her son Callum, and his mother, who is due for release from prison the day before his sixteenth birthday. Desperate to fulfil this simple but elusive dream of normal family life, Liam turns to selling heroin, helped by his best friend Pinball (William Ruane), only to learn that his ruthless determination, enterprising spirit and all-round cockiness (qualities essential for success in the American 'pursuit of dreams' sub-genre) are not enough to mend his broken home or deliver him from the problems that are his birthright.

This is a hard-hitting, gritty tragedy, reminiscent of Lynne Ramsay's 'Ratcatcher' in theme, tone and setting, if somewhat less poetic. I would recommend this film to anyone who does not object to depression as an aesthetic mode, but unfortunately the BBFC's curious decision to award it an 18 certificate - based solely on its strong language! - ensures that the very age-group it concerns will be excluded from seeing it in a cinema - leaving them instead no doubt to swear, and perhaps sell gear, on the streets.

Anton Bitel