Better Things Reviews

* * * This review contains spoilers * * *ShowHide

[Highly rated reviewer]

As not approved by the Cotswolds Tourist Board

Finding Hopkins' well thought of short 'Love me or leave me alone' a Poundstretcher bag of yoof cliches, I was wary of seeing this. But he's a young Brit who's just not that into Hollywood so you've got to support him.I watched with around 30 others at the ICA..well 27 by the time it finished as obviously some people were expecting 'Trainspotting: The Chipping Camden Years'. The film is a salad of stories based in a rural village. It revolves around young drug users, octogenarians and an agraphobic nicotine addict so is hardly going to get Jerry Bruckheimer reaching for his cheque book. Its artistry and empathy for its resolutely unglamorous characters puts it alongside the work of Lynn Ramsay, Andrea Arnold, Robert Besson, though more stylised. There is precisely one joke. It plays with sound and uses editing in a very deliberate way. The lighting is often dramatic. Hopkins also employs landscape to give you that profound melancholic shiver that only wind in trees on a stormy English Thursday afternoon in late October can provide.

Those atmospheres and the feeling of people trying to combat the 'nothing' with drugs, sex, computer games, fast driving, music, books, cigarettes, memories are what the film is 'about'. He gets good performances from his largely non-pro cast ( one of whom has subsequently died as a result of drug use). He avoids teen caricatures....very difficult with 'realistic' portrayals of teens. Conversations are normal, sometimes even polite. The drug dealer is more housewife than corner boy. He does cut way too often to another 'miserable' face in three quarter profile looking out the window on public transport. And the drug death at the end is predictable and lazy. But overall, he knows what he wants and he has a pretty good idea of how to get it.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Shiny Happy People....not!

More stereotyping of young people, showing them leading depressing and unfulfilled lives.

Some film producers and directors need to get out a little more and experience what's really going on in the world, rather than seeking to portray this constant negative teenage misery.

The film is slow and unsatisfying with some diabolical delivery of dialogue.

They are all on heroin

Had someone mentioned the heroin bit, I might have known that I was going to find all the key characters a bit hard to empathise with. My partner is an ambulance man and pleaded with me to turn the film off... Too much like work for him. Fine. I was bored with them anyway. Nuff said.

I have finally seen the worst film ever made.

This film was dire beyond belief. Dull, boring, dreary, terrible script...amateur directing...

I can only think it got made because it seemed to be 'down with the yoof' and to do with 'drugs and that' so it must be cool, street and 'edgy'.But it's not. And if those ARE the reasons it got made with such a large wedge of taxpayers' money (EM Media and UK Film Council) heads should roll. Never mind politicians' expenses - it's astonishing that this was made.

But that's just one opinion. See for yourself if you can bear it...

[Highly rated reviewer]

underwhelming and overbearing 'yoof' film

If you find this film praiseworthy you are either an english language teacher, a sociology student or an Observer film critic. Everyone else should find it painfully over-indulgent as it tries to do clever tricks with fast edits, exetended static shots, moving forward backward through time, dramatic skyscapes and otherwise usage of the elements, to try to make meaningful the meaningless lives of rural kids who cannot make the effort to enjoy life except through external stimuli such as drugs, sex and videogames untill a wise old granny explains it to them. Fairly wooden performances as well, the only saving grace is some of the cinematography.

[Highly rated reviewer]

Welcome to the UK Fim Council

This was financed by the UK Film Council - it's almost as if they set out to make the most unappealing uncommercial and, more importantly, unengaging material they could find. Most films, however bad, have some redeeming features - this appears to be the exception. Croneyism at the UKFC was behind this badly written, badly directed piece of crap. Shame on them. I see Time Out loved it, but then they would, wouldn't they?

[Highly rated reviewer]

could be better...

Granted, there wasnt much happen in this film, it was rather a melancholy movie, and it certainly isnt a film you'd say you had 'enjoyed'. However, it was a film well worth watching - a study on hope, the loss of hope, love, life and death.

Not even worth watching

It wasnt even worth a 1 star!!!!!!!!! had better things to do, i actually forgot i was watching it at one point!

Tedious codswallop

Wow, well i never thought films could be this dull and shoddy!! Some of the other reviews say that its onlysavig grace is fantastic editing and cinematography - not true. The frames are awful. The editing is meaningless. The film is pointless. Seriously, don't watch it. I spent years of my life taking drugs and this film is biased, incorrect, dull and a complete waste of what felt like four hours. My girlfriend fell asleep during it. I decided to tough it out and pay attention throughout. I feel totally cheated.

Cinematic.

Suffused with an, at times, almost overwhelming melancholy, Duane Hopkins very striking and beautifully crafted feature film debut aims to tackle universal subjects by focussing on tiny details. The film is about the pain of romantic love, loneliness and addiction and seeks to draw parallels between the craving for a drug and the desire to be loved and belong to someone. Set in an unnamed English rural community Better Things is not interested narrative drive – there’s barely any forward momentum in terms of “plot” – but instead uses an elaborate collage of sounds and images to conjure up a very specific sense of place and time. Hopkins is a master in the medium of cinematic language. His images are very spare but always perfectly chosen and elaborately framed with a continual focus on light and shade. He imbues his often very ordinary settings with a painterly depth that’s further enhanced enhanced by the use of lush 35mm Anamorphic widescreen film stock. Best of all, perhaps, is the editing (not something that’s usually as conspicuous as here) which is continually surprising and inventive. Whilst the film is highly stylised (In both style and setting the film owes a considerable debt to Robert Bresson), as a portrait of loss, inertia and simply the “fear of being” Better Things feels utterly authentic. The combination of bleak realism with such a rich audio-visual vocabulary creates an immensely rewarding and intensely cinematic experience.