My latest post is a film review for Cemetery Junction, enjoy....
In Cemetery Junction in the early 70’s we meet three best friends who are about to come of age. We have Snork who works for the local railway station and he is happy with his life but dreams of finding a girlfriend. Freddie has high ambitions and starts working for a life insurance company donning a suit and tie each day for work and he is trying to make his life better than that of his families. The third member of the group is Bruce, he is slightly different from the others and is quite content spending his time drinking and fighting and getting in trouble with the police. He talks a lot of moving away from Cemetery Junction but never really does anything about it.
The three boys spend their time together getting into scrapes and having fun but will any of them really make anything good of their lives and will any one really leave Cemetery Junction?
I was not overly keen to watch this film but once it came onto the movie channels both me and hubby decided to give it a go, mainly due to the fact it was a Rickey Gervais film and was have liked his previous ones. I did have mixed feelings about this film and despite the slightly slow story line it was quite entertaining.
The characters were good and I did like how different the three boys were, we had Snork who was happy to plod along in life spending his time trying to get a girl and he did bring some humour to the story. I felt he was put upon a lot and made to be daft which was not always what the story needed. He was played by Jack Doolan and I think he did a good job which delivering his lines and making us all like him. Freddie was played by Christian Cooke and he too was good. I liked the bit of drive which he had and felt he was the strongest of the bunch. He seemed to want something from life and he did make an effort to go out and get it. He had some good one liners when it came to being on screen with his family and I enjoyed seeing this little side to him as it did bring some depth to the story. Bruce was an all together different character, he had issues which his father and I liked how this was a big part of how he acted and came across. He seemed slightly lost with his life and although he knew he wanted out of Cemetery Junction he never got off his butt and did something about it. He was played by Tom Hughes. I felt he did a great job of showing his emotions and dealing with his issues and came across as a very good actor.
We had some very funny support roles in the film and for me the one which I felt was the strongest was that of Freddie’s father. He was played by Ricky Gervais and I loved the humour and wit he bought to the film. I would have liked to have seen more of him in the film though. This is British film and all the way through I sopped a lot of well know actors and they all played good small roles. Some of the names included, Ralph Fiennes, Steve Speirs, Anne Reid and Emily Watson.
The setting for the film was the early 1970’s and I did enjoy this. The old way of life was shown in a great way and I did love the fashions which we got to see. The small community where the boys lived was very suitable for the film as it came across as a little depressing and I could quite see why the boys wanted to leave. I don’t think this film would have had the same impact and the story would not have been as good if this was set in the present day or in a larger town. The costumes were all good and all fitted very well with the year and feel of the film. As a result of the year we did have some great music throughout the film. I loved the old tracks which were played and enjoyed how they were all well known ones. I did find I was toe tapping and singing along to some of them much to hubby’s disapproval!
There are no special effects in the film and no action so I don’t recommend you watch if this is what you want from a film. We did have a few small fight scenes which added to the drama of the film but no effects were needed for these. I don’t think the film needed any CGI or effects and if any were used it would have taken away from the effects and year of setting.
This is a film only review so there are no bonus features to speak about. The DVD can be bought for around £5 from a variety of places. The running time of the film is 95 minutes and I felt this was quite long enough. We had the story moving at a steady pace from start to finish. The rate is a 15 and I do agree with this as there are some scenes which contain drugs, drink and there is a lot of swearing throughout the film.
I am going to recommend this film as long as you don’t expect too much from it. The acting from most was great and the story was interesting. There seemed nothing new to the story but I did still enjoy watching. This is certainly not the strongest film from Gervais and as a result I can only give it 3 stars. I would say try to catch this for free on the TV instead of buying the DVD.
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