This Is England is a historical fiction coming-of-age drama set in Margaret Thatcher’s 1980s England. It centres on a troubled 12-year-old boy, Shaun, who lives with his widowed mother, Cynthia, in the East Midlands of England. Both are trying to cope with the grief of Shaun’s father being killed in the Falklands War.
Shaun is a lost kid. He lacks purpose, kinship and belonging. He then comes across a gang of young skinheads led by Richard “Woody” Woodford, superbly played by Joe Gilgun, who feels sympathy for Shaun and invites him to join the group. The young and impressionable Shaun is drawn into the world of older teenagers – drinking alcohol, taking drugs, using crude language and vandalising derelict buildings. If that wasn’t enough, one of the older girls tries to seduce Shaun and make him her boyfriend.
Her advances toward a much younger Shaun make for some very unsettling scenes. At times I wondered how the filmmakers managed those scenes given the age difference between the actors and Shaun being a wee-tacker. If that wasn’t enough, the group’s world is shaken by the arrival of Combo, a radical far-right nationalist who has just been released from prison. The film’s title refers to a moment when Combo delivers a nationalist speech and repeatedly says, “This is England.”
The standout element of this movie is without doubt the performances. The intense realism from such a young cast is remarkable. Thomas Turgose, who plays Shaun, is outstanding. You experience the whole unsettling story through his vulnerable yet determined eyes.
But not to take anything away from the rest of the cast – the most extraordinary and unforgettable performance comes from Stephen Graham (image inset) as Combo. His portrayal is deeply menacing and unsettling. He fully inhabits the character and creates one of the most intimidating and violent figures you are likely to see on screen.
What was more reckoning is how lived-in, weathered and worn his character is. This is not just a guy from the shadows who pokes his head out once in a while with a “boo”, rather, this is the worst bully of your imagination – the one who greets you with a smile, a “How ya goin’, mate?” – and a slightly uncomfortable, brute slap on the back. That someone could well be living on your street corner – someone who’s never going away and will not stop until he gets his way. He lurks like a deadly contagion, ready to pounce on its host.
Moving on to the political nature and message of the movie, well that’s where it doesn’t sit so well in the current age. It perhaps did at the time it was made, during the height of progressivism and the era it was set, warning of the perils and evil of the far-right in its radical and extremist tendencies. This Is England falls into the highly conscientised ideological worldview that ‘patriotism’ is bad and open borders are good, and if you disagree with that, then – you’re probably a racist. It lacks nuance in its messaging – as will be shown below, when I refer to the final scene.
With the swing in the last decade, the ‘left’, once usually moderate-leaning, shifted radically towards the far left – a kind of Western Maoism. This occurred with the advent of social media and later as the Woke movement broke onto the scene in prominent universities. The train of progressivism never stopped at the station. It just kept going full steam ahead.
Grooming gangs in Europe are the real deal, not that the Western media are going to report on something that’s not aligned with their political narrative – it’s called selective media propaganda and it’s out of control. Authorities faced criticism, with police and social services often dismissing victims due to fears of being labelled racist. That malpractice by the Western media and authorities over the last little while has caused a pendulum swing back to the right and toward nationalism, where values like patriotism and restricted borders are emphasised.
Spoiler Alert:
So, when I now see in the end scene of This Is England where the young Shaun takes his St George’s flag – which previously adorned his bedroom (the traditional flag of England and has deep historical roots) – out to the gloomy shores of the East Midlands and just tosses it into the ocean – as if it represented an ugly stain and chapter of England’s past – I was thinking, “Hey, Mr Director – don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.” Patriotism and national pride are nothing to be scoffed at, as well as the Judeo-Christian values and foundations our Western liberal societies are built on.
Before closing, I would like to mention two pieces of music in This Is England that I found quite beautiful, both composed by Italian musician Ludovico Einaudi: “Fuori dal Mondo” and “Dietro Casa,” which I’ll include below. In the latter video, you can find the music set to scenes from the movie.
References:
1. This is England – IMDB
2. This is England – Wikipedia
“The more I live, the more I learn. The more I learn, the more I realize, the less I know.”- Michel Legrand
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