House of America

In an isolated prairie-style house built from corrugated iron, the Lewis family - mad mam (Phillips), teenage dreamers Sid and Gwenny (Mackintosh and Palfrey), and their down-to-earth young brother Boyo (Rhys, sympathetic) - struggle to cope with the void left by their absent husband/father who 15 years before traded the green green grass of South Wales for the wide open spaces of America. More like an overwrought Sam Shepard psycho-drama than a downbeat study of doleful teenagers, this adapted play (by Edward Thomas) eschews miserabilism in favour of a poetic celebration of naive teen dreams about burning bright and dying young. With no local heroes to call their own, the Harley-riding Sid and Gwenny lose themselves in a drink and drug-fuelled fantasy of the American Dream derived from Kerouac's On the Road. The bleached photography and Welsh-dominated soundtrack adds notable texture to an ambitious debut.