Nil by Mouth

CinemaSerf

It's Kathy Burke who steals this for me with a powerfully emotional characterisation of "Valerie". She lives with her brutish husband "Raymond" (Ray Winstone) and her permanently geared-up brother "Billy" (Charlie Creed-Miles). None of the are strangers to drugs and to booze, but when her husband reckons his wastrel brother-in-law has pinched his stuff, he turfs him onto the streets where here resorts to his own mother "Janet" (Laila Morse) for a bed and a source of cash to feed his habit. 'Billy" is a bit of a thoughtless cretin and his behaviour leads to even more turmoil for his sister when "Raymond" finally flips and she is hospitalised. Believe it or not, this has the semblance of a love story to it. The relationship between "Raymond" and "Valerie" might actually run a bit deeper than that of an impoverished couple struggling through the motions from day-to-day. It's the evolution of that partnership that makes the characters a bit more interesting, but I felt the vitriolic and angry dialogue was mostly just a repetitive series of Anglo-Saxon tantrums and drug-fuelled anger - and that let it down for me. Still, Gary Oldman quite effectively shines a light on his perception of how life on a south east London housing estate is endured rather than lived. It's dark, visceral, condemnatory on many levels and quite a tough watch but Winstone only has one gear and for me and he never really convinces.