This is England (2006)

Premise: After a difficult school year and the death of his father in the Falklands Conflict, twelve year-old Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) falls in with a group lead by Woody (Joseph Gilgun). When Combo (Stephen Graham) returns from prison to claim his position as their leader and reveal the more sinister basis of the group, Shaun is forced to choose between the two with disastrous results.

What a strange, intense picture. From the stunning opening montage set to Toots & The Maytals' "54-46 Was My Number," writer-director Shane Meadows has the audience vibrating. It's electric. In that short span, he establishes "unpredictable" as the watchword. Even if you can look at the premise above and guess how it will end, you'll still end up being wrong by being right.

What an intriguing portrait of skinheads. When Shaun first comes across Woody and friends, it's easier to think of them as random punks or layabouts than skinheads. Sure, the look is right, but they are hanging out with a Jamaican immigrant, Milky (Andrew Shim), and the only negative things they say about anyone to anyone are to each other about each other. The group is more about inclusion than anything, and Meadows puts together another terrific montage of them taking Shaun swimming and splashing in puddles down back alleys to underline how carefree and relaxed they are.

Meadows is all about repeated images, but his gift is that you never feel bashed over the head with them. Instead, they pull Shaun (and you, by extension) further down the rabbit hole. The more the images repeat, the more you worry. The way Meadows weaves them into Shaun's transformation is intelligent, but how plausible he makes that transformation is ingenious. He hooks it into Shaun's leading characteristic, familial loyalty, in a way that's both crazy and likely.

For all Meadows' talent, he couldn't have done it without Turgoose in the lead. He manages play childhood and pre-adolescence in a way that almost feels revelatory. There's no pretension to it. He's foulmouthed because it still excites him to be. He's got hard lessons ahead, you can see that from the outset, but he learns them in a way that feels fresh and honest. It makes you feel like you haven't grown up as much over years as he does over one summer. Even so, Turgoose's performance is free of the precociousness and preternatural calm that often plagues child actors today.

If the movie had been less plot driven, it would find a kindred spirit in Killer of Sheep for its slice of working class life quality. Of course, it would also find that kindred spirit in sometimes amateurish quality of the performances. England's greatest downfall, however, is its occasionally too on point dialogue. There were a few moments, not many, where I thought, "People don't talk like this."

All in all, this movie, based on Meadows' own experiences growing up and lifted by Ludovico Einaudi's sparse, piano driven score, is not to be missed. A