Sweet Sixteen

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In the lobby, before the film started, I overheard a woman cheerfully chattering about the last film she saw. How heartwarming it was and how funny and la, la, la. As I took my seat, I turned and saw her smiling face . . . she waved, I smiled and waved back. Later, as the screen lit-up with Liam’s face and he used the “C” word for about the five-thousandth time, I noticed she was gone!

Unlike Hollywood’s current wave of movies that describe teenage angst in terms of beer drinking, funny sex, belching and passing gas this film is not for the fainthearted or for those looking for an easy laugh. Winner of the Best Screenplay Award at this years Cannes, Sweet Sixteen is anything but sweet as it compels us to enter the life of fifteen-year-old, Liam.

A likeable truant who peddles cigarettes on the tough streets of Glasgow, Liam, along with best friend Pinball (William Ruane) begins to hawk more than smokes. His dream is to raise enough money so that when his “mum” returns from years in prison, their life will be different, it will be

better. Stealing the stash of his mother’s heroin-dealing boyfriend, Liam sets up his own drug dealing operation. Before long, he attracts the attention of the local drug kingpin, but not in a bad way. Intrigued with Liam’s audacity, the gangster puts the teenager on the payroll. All that’s left now is for Liam to cross the line. The line that takes a young boy from flirting to disaster, from fifteen to sixteen.

Director Ken Loach, is well known for his unorthodox approach to filmmaking. Here, with the combination of hand-held cameras, a touch of film noir, and the on-screen presence of Martin Compston as Liam, Loach hits an unorthodox home run. While researching for this film on location, Loach opened up local auditions for the lead roles and found Compston, a young, raw talent who literally shells the audience with his riveting performance. The screenplay is brilliant in it’s clarity and straightforward storyline and although the violence is kept to a minimum, the one-hour and forty-six minutes is filled with profanity ... almost every line. The other odd bit here is the use of sub-titles. The Scottish spoken is rarely decipherable, and it takes some getting used to hearing what you know as English but cannot clearly understand without the written words on the screen. What this means, is that if you’re in for gritty, real-life and well done, you not only get to hear the profanity but you can read it as well.