Big Up The Unloved
What was moving about Samantha Morton’s drama The Unloved on Monday night wasn’t so much the personal details of her life, but what she decided not to include, which seemed to work in a lovely, but heartbreaking type of way. Just because you can pepper a scene with domestic violence, doesn’t mean you should. A male director might have socked it to us hard, but she didn’t and it was, erm, hard viewing.
The silence in some key scenes was chilling. The car journey from the school office to the children’s home was one of the most powerful examples of less is more I can remember. Imagine not having anyone in the world to turn to. It’s difficult; how do you track unimaginable loneliness on the screen? Turn the sound off and focus the close up on the child in a moving car to an unknown destination. Well, it’s not difficult, original or profound but it was effective.
The decisions involved in making a film about your own experiences are probably endless. One of them, to pitch the film in the current time rather than the 70s, seemed relevant as it really doesn’t matter about decades, haircuts and fashion. Kids sniff solvents and live in clatteringly unprofessional shit holes (sorry, Children’s Homes) now.
Nicely cast was the suited and disinterested social worker. I’ve met loads of ‘professionals’ like them. They don’t like kids, they’re icy, they’re mumbling, inarticulate and passionless. Although, luckily for Lucy, there’s always one care worker, in any dire situation, who shows warmth and a film like this needs one just as one’s needed in real life.
Children’s homes are frightening places but 72,000 live in them. They’re supposed to be the safe option but they’re often mismanaged, sometimes corrupt, occasionally unsafe, skin blisteringly lacking in privacy and always distressingly noisy places. You wouldn’t.
20/05/2009 at 09:23
It’s a very long 76 minutes (in a 100-minute film) before Lucy is hugged by anyone. And she’s met an awful lot of adults by then who are all paid to be concerned, but are box tickers and target-meeters. The phrase “I’m afraid that’s not an option right now?” is a mantra that’s barely better than “Computer says no”
This was indeed very powerful and sorrowful fare. A most damning detail came in the very first scene at the children’s home. A youngster tries to enter the room where the ‘team’ have assembled to face their new arrival. He/she (can we even tell?) has the door shut on them. Excluding. You can’t trust children, they’re always up to something. Morton’s film captured perfectly the dread children have when they feel they’ve done something innately wrong even when they haven’t……The tiptoeing around rooms, the way how, in one scene, Lucy edges backwards when a doorhandle starts to twist.
And no talking, no colour, no warmth, no FUN. Is it any wonder Lauren can’t return an ‘I love you’ with any sincerity? Even on reconvening with her violent father, Lucy ends up effectively being his silent marriage guidance counsellor. She becomes responsible for everyone else’s carelessness (in both senses of the word). Heartbreakingly, the only time when she was truly able to ‘play’ involved her escaping and exploring alone in a sort of desolate playground (skipping around that tree may be her most animated and certainly carefree act in the entire film).
Deeply depressing viewing, obviously, but utterly essential. Thanks for writing so beautifully about it, RE. And by the way, on a bathetic note, choosing Nottingham bus station as a location for grimness is spot on…
20/05/2009 at 14:16
Your observations are essential reading as ever.
The same adapter as Red Riding, you say? What a difference gender can make in direction.
20/05/2009 at 14:48
And no laughter whatsoever either, unless you count Lauren’s guffaw of contempt to the security guards at Boots. (“Could you not get into the police, then?”) Which in turn emitted a snigger from me.
20/05/2009 at 19:45
Lauren was a bit dim at shoplifting wasn’t she? Everyone knows you buy something, nick something. At the same time. Apparently.
20/05/2009 at 20:22
*That*’s where I’ve been getting it wrong. Tiswasnottiswas, News at Ten, Parkhurst.
26/05/2009 at 21:40
Incidentally, there’s an interview with Morton in the new issue of Sight and Sound. She mentions that not only did Nottinghamshire Social Services officially refuse to participate in the making of The Unloved; any employee who disobeyed this would have been sacked. What are they hiding, I wonder?
27/05/2009 at 07:19
I think we can guess. The problem lies in that most children’s homes like some schools I’ve had the misfortune to be involved in, are unprofessional places. I’ve feared for the safety of some kids in my class because the management didn’t appear to care about their safety despite publically protesting otherwise. If a place is mismanaged it can be a frightening experience for a child. While the powers that be create spin.
27/05/2009 at 09:46
The children’s home portrayed in The Unloved had that air of “Well, you’re alive, what more do you want?”