Review by Doug Cooper
Stars Liam Browne, Nancy Trotter Landry, Michael
Hodgson, Arabella Arnott, Stephen Bent
Written by Sean Conway
Produced by Karl Liegis
Certification UK 18
Runtime 101 minutes
Directed by Ashley Horner
This is a low budget British movie detailing the tribulations of a young couple's relationship. Praise must certainly go to the two leads, Browne and Landry, who are bold indeed both physically and emotionally in the explicit sex scenes. But unfortunately the ensuing dilemmas their characters face don't ring true, and that goes for their behaviour and reactions too.
Landry plays Noon, a taxidermist, while Browne is slacker Manchester, so in love with each other that the fact they live in a garage is no issue to them. He takes artistic photos of her while she's naked and asleep and also while they're having sex. One night he gets drunk in a pub with his mate and leaves some polaroids behind. These are picked up by middle aged porn entrepeneur Franny (Hodgson) who promptly decides to track the photographer down. He invites Manchester and Noon to stay at his mansion with him and his blonde wife (Arnott) - but he has an ulterior motive. He is so impressed with Manchester's photographic skills that he wants to launch an exhibition of his work. But how would Noon feel about this? Would she want to be scrutinised by strangers in all her naked glory? Nope, so the guys don't tell her about the exhibition, but she finds out about it anyway and turns up to the event. Shocked and stunned, her presence causes ructions in their passionate relationship.
The main problem here is that the characters are so unbelievably stupid. Manchester comes across as retarded such is his lack of perception and intelligence while Noon seems ludicrously naive. Why on earth would they stay in a stranger's house for days on end and what finally does she see in her partner? He is so lacking in sense and so completely dense that one can't believe that she'd want to be with him. The cod dramatics are cliched and the narrative plods along in a meandering and melodramatic fashion.
However, there's a germ of a good idea here though and director Ashley Horner certainly has potential. He draws committed performances from his players and some individual scenes are solid and involving. But overall the script lets them down, the general lack of plausibility defeating the enterprise. Shame, as all the participants are gifted and deserving of more praiseworthy projects.