Still

The death of his son in a car accident near his north London home has spun photographer Aidan Gillen (‘Game of Thrones’) into a downward spiral. His marriage is over and a gnawing sense of loss is eating away at him. With a new on-off girlfriend on the go, he’s trying to move on, but the everyday aggravations of inner city life (and one yobbish local youth in particular) won’t quite let him.

First-time director Simon Blake is clearly on the right track in sensing how London’s background noise of urban paranoia and sudden violence can rub salt into personal wounds, but he’s not yet a skilled enough storyteller to make the most of his material. Tension evaporates over too many draggy stretches of dialogue, and an attempt to ramp up the final stretch falls short of credibility.

In the circumstances, even the usually reliable Gillen seems to be trying a bit too hard. This is a film which is desperate to make a grand statement about the awful toll of isolation and exhausted compassion but falls short of its ambitions.