London River
Top badass moment? The station featured in this film, the one with all the home-made posters, is Harringay in north London, just off Green Lanes. I recognised it as soon as it appeared on the screen, as I used to manage the staff based at a Local Nature Reserve nearby. It used to be a crappy little station, probably still is; there hardly ever seemed to be anyone waiting for a train there and it has weird, offset platforms that aren’t opposite each other. Green Lanes is an area with a long history of violent and gang related crime. The road does have an interesting selection of shops all along its length, although they’re the sort that you can’t really see into from the outside. Quite why people were putting up ‘Missing’ posters there is a bit of a mystery, as the locations that were bombed are all about four or more miles from there. Maybe, like Jane, a lot of people lived nearby as it was probably one of the cheapest places in London to live because of its less than attractive reputation.
And whilst we’re on the subject of trains, in this film we see Ousmane travelling on a Class 313 EMU (destination Stevenage) in First Capital Connect livery. The latter is long gone, and the last Class 313 was retired in 2023. They were knackered old trains by then anyway. Good riddance.
Well now that’s over with…
I find it hard to write stupid nonsense about films that are based on or around real-life tragedies, and the blowing up of three Tube trains and a Number 30 double decker bus in central London, in 2005, was horrific. 56 people died, including the four suicide bombers. I was living in London at the time and used to travel on the Underground quite regularly through Edgware Road Station, where one of the three trains that were bombed was blown up. Weirdly, I don’t remember where I was when I head the news, whereas I remember exactly where I was when I head the news about the 9/11 attacks some four years earlier.
This film was released only four years after the attacks in London. I guess you could say that’s a bit too soon, but it’s not really film about them directly. It’s more about two people searching for loved ones that, initially at least, they don’t connect to the attacks at all. The sax heavy jazz soundtrack is used well to fill in the parts when nothing’s being spoken – and that’s coming from someone who really doesn’t like modern jazz.
Now I know they were probably busy and everything at the time, but the police came across as really quite cruel. The place where most of the scenes between them and the main characters took place, looked more like an abandoned Victorian workhouse – no windows, all pipes and dismal underground corridors. Everything was so heartless. Just awful.
Technically it’s fine, if quite basic; the plot is simple but it doesn’t need to be anything else; the script is quite sparce but does its job; and the acting’s excellent – Brenda Blethyn is totally convincing as the somewhat (inadvertently) racist mother and I now struggle to imagine Sotigui Kouyate ever being cheerful, even in real life.
I didn’t really warm to either of the main characters, even though I felt terribly sorry for them. They weren’t bad people or anything, but I had little in common with either and a tiny bit of me inside wanted to give them both a jolly good shake and tell them to sort themselves out. I know that probably makes me a bad and unsympathetic person. I’ve never had to confront the sort of situation for real that they had and I hope I never do. In many ways this is a film more about the relationship between the main characters than the search for their kids, and it really does make how it develops very believable.
No cats, chainsaws or decapitations.
And whilst we’re on the subject of trains, in this film we see Ousmane travelling on a Class 313 EMU (destination Stevenage) in First Capital Connect livery. The latter is long gone, and the last Class 313 was retired in 2023. They were knackered old trains by then anyway. Good riddance.
Well now that’s over with…
I find it hard to write stupid nonsense about films that are based on or around real-life tragedies, and the blowing up of three Tube trains and a Number 30 double decker bus in central London, in 2005, was horrific. 56 people died, including the four suicide bombers. I was living in London at the time and used to travel on the Underground quite regularly through Edgware Road Station, where one of the three trains that were bombed was blown up. Weirdly, I don’t remember where I was when I head the news, whereas I remember exactly where I was when I head the news about the 9/11 attacks some four years earlier.
This film was released only four years after the attacks in London. I guess you could say that’s a bit too soon, but it’s not really film about them directly. It’s more about two people searching for loved ones that, initially at least, they don’t connect to the attacks at all. The sax heavy jazz soundtrack is used well to fill in the parts when nothing’s being spoken – and that’s coming from someone who really doesn’t like modern jazz.
Now I know they were probably busy and everything at the time, but the police came across as really quite cruel. The place where most of the scenes between them and the main characters took place, looked more like an abandoned Victorian workhouse – no windows, all pipes and dismal underground corridors. Everything was so heartless. Just awful.
Technically it’s fine, if quite basic; the plot is simple but it doesn’t need to be anything else; the script is quite sparce but does its job; and the acting’s excellent – Brenda Blethyn is totally convincing as the somewhat (inadvertently) racist mother and I now struggle to imagine Sotigui Kouyate ever being cheerful, even in real life.
I didn’t really warm to either of the main characters, even though I felt terribly sorry for them. They weren’t bad people or anything, but I had little in common with either and a tiny bit of me inside wanted to give them both a jolly good shake and tell them to sort themselves out. I know that probably makes me a bad and unsympathetic person. I’ve never had to confront the sort of situation for real that they had and I hope I never do. In many ways this is a film more about the relationship between the main characters than the search for their kids, and it really does make how it develops very believable.
No cats, chainsaws or decapitations.
Mini Review: Top badass moment? The station featured in this film is Harringay in north London. I recognised it as soon as it appeared on the screen, as I used to use it for work quite often. We also see Ousmane travelling on a Class 313 EMU in First Capital Connect livery. The latter is long gone, and the last Class 313 was retired in 2023. They were knackered old trains by then anyway. Oh yes, the film itself; well it's good, if blanketed under a dense cloud of sadness. No cats, chainsaws or decapitations.