New Town Original

On paper, this low-budget Essex flick sidesteps the clichés of the genre, aiming for slow-burning character drama rather than comedy or action. Young Mick (Elliott Jordan) has a dead-end job, friends he can’t talk to and a burgeoning paranoia that’s fuelled by a fling with a local thug’s ex. He doesn’t know where he’s going. Neither, unfortunately, does the film. Laboriously slow, it dwells on the everyday minutiae of Mick’s life without sufficient character development, humour, plot interest or acting talent to involve. Strong members of the supporting cast are let down by weak ones, and when the film eventually warms to its theme – the trials of being a sensitive Essex boy – it’s too little too late. Bafflingly, the soundtrack often suggests a thriller, but there’s no suspense here, so supposedly revelatory moments are ineffective. ‘New Town…’ may be reasonably original in concept, but you get the feeling its idiosyncratic structure isn’t quite the kind of originality writer-director Ford had in mind.