Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

GazerRise Fantastic!

Griff Lees Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

QuaiDuCommerce I appreciate the artistic ambition that went into this film, but it comes out lacking in a number of ways. The subject matter is interesting and some of the acting really quite good, particularly the actress playing the mother. I also felt Tamzin's (daughter's) acting was better than some have given her credit for; she was playing the part of the grouchy teenager and she did it, in my opinion, well. However, here are my gripes, in no particular order: 1. One-dimensional characters, particularly the father. (He basically chomps a piece of gum and simmers with rage for the entire film). The problem didn't seem to be with the acting for the most part; it seemed more as though the plot left no room for nuance in any character except the Roma girl.2. Incredibly cliché dialogue. I'm actually relieved to read the dialogue may have been ad-libbed, because it's painful to think dialogue this trite could have gotten rubber-stamped before it went to the actors. "Did you ever really love me"... "it's over"... "you're an ass"... ugh. For an improvised acting exercise, sure... for a movie that's being screened at film festivals and distributed worldwide? No way.3. Time shifts, as delivered through the film editing, create much more confusion than they do intrigue. They're used at the expense of the tension that *would* build with a more linear editing technique. Some aspects NEVER seem to make any sense-- the continuity errors another reviewer referred to.4. A conclusion that makes you think "Huh? How does that make any sense?" and then, the next day, you're still thinking, "Huh?" The director has not done a good job in making the characters seem truly "backed into a corner" when they need to appear so; instead their choices seem inexplicable.5. Scene after scene, in the first half, in which the mother is on the phone, gracing the viewer with her one-sided, animated phone conversations. I started to feel like I was at a very uncomfortable lunch with a friend who wouldn't stop answering her freakin' phone. The phone dialogue is actually well-done and well-acted; there's simply way too much of it.It's surprising to me that many of these problems weren't noticed, or changed, before the final edit. At the end of the day, a lot of it is a suspension of disbelief problem, and I expect the director was hoping we'd care enough about the film and the subject to just go along for the ride. However, most viewers have a sharper eye than that.

kevin-477 I've given it 2, but even then I find it hard to justify such a high mark. I had high hopes for this film, having read reviews in which it was praised for presenting a refreshing and original take on the refugee/asylum issue. I'm sorry, but for me - a die-hard liberal who should have lapped up its messages - it simply didn't deliver. Stylistically, it was awful to watch: more goofs and blunders and continuity slips than I could count. The script was terrible: it seemed like a middle-class film-maker's idea of how working-class people speak and behave. It sounded like a workshop piece from a creative writing class. The characters didn't work, either. Not a single one of them was remotely believable - just a whole bunch of stereotypes. And despite a stellar cast, the acting was awful - which, I would guess, was largely to do with the direction, and not a little to do with the script. The whole thing failed to move me in any way - except when it came to ejecting the disc and taking it back to the shop.

Cliff Hanley This, the first undiluted Dogme production to be officially made in the UK, benefits right away from the use of tiny hand-held digi-cams, as quite a lot of the action takes place in the heroine's crowded council house or in the cramped trailer inhabited by two immigrants, Tasha (Chloe Sirene) and her mother Irina, played by the wonderful Rula Lenska. The council house is run by Helen (Pauline McLynn), who having raised her own two kids now has to mind her daughter Kelly's (Tamzin Dunstone) baby, while coping with a husband (Paul McGann) who has clearly lost his lust for life and believes he has been short-changed at the existential check-out. This situation is first explored from Helen's point-of-view: Kelly's college chum Tasha invited in for tea but having to put up with dad's railing against 'them immigrants, crowding into this tiny country and taking our jobs'. In this sequence, the family is fragmenting, several red herrings are chucked at us from the start, friendships are forged, the whole family throws itself into change, everyone tries to find their own way of surviving but it all seems to end in despair. Then we get it all again, from Paul's side. A natural reaction to this might be 'hold, enough!' - but now we get to see whence some of those herrings, and several more puzzlers are laid like booby traps, which may be opened eventually in the 'Tasha' story. Although there was no script, the overall structure, resembling a jigsaw being put together, must have been mapped out - it doesn't look as if it was all done in the cutting room. It works very well as a dark mystery edge-of-the-seat thriller; and just as well as an exploration of the forces of circumstance and the impulses that we employ (or imagine we employ) to deal with those forces. CLIFF HANLEY

jgrafx Just when it seems that cinema has descended yet again into the deep abyss of zero plot combined with tons of special effects performed by pretty boys and pop tarts with no acting abilities whatsoever to disguise the fact that it is trash, something new comes along to uplift the entire sorry state of modern film and restore the discerning audience's faith in the true art of the cinema. I attended just such a performance at the 24th August 2005 premiere screening of Gypo in the UK at the Edinburgh International Film Festival (EIFF) and found it to be a powerful dramatic piece (the first British one) from the recent Dogme genre of film making. According to its manifesto, Dogme rules reject special effects, scripted and formulaic acting, and films all scenes in ambient light to make the actors rather than post- production additions drive the plot. Told from the points of view of the wife Helen, the husband Paul and the Czech immigrant Tasha, the story of the disintegration of a working-class British family from Margate while encountering newly-arrived refugee immigrants, makes for some gritty, gripping entertainment. As the film covers the same events from three differing points of view, the plot is gradually fleshed out and brought to a most surprising conclusion. Nothing is as it originally appears. Be prepared to be surprised and absorbed completely in the unfolding, many-layered story.Pauline McLynn, usually known for her comedic acting in the UK, gives a tour de force drama performance as the frustrated, ineffective-feeling wife Helen. One feels her frustration when her husband and teenage daughter use her in various ways and make fun of her attempts to find her inner creative self in sculpture classes. When she meets Tasha, we are allowed to see her caring and compassionate side in reaching out for those less fortunate still. Paul McGann portrays the simmering angry, repressed, frustrated breadwinner who hates change yet despises his limited, impoverished, meaningless existence of doing carpet installation day jobs. Alternating between stony silence and lashing out in bigoted epithets at "Gypos" whom he feels (incorrectly) take his jobs, McGann portrays a total bastard with whom one may still feel some sympathy. Perhaps, he might have filled some of the silent scenes with more lines, but his performance was generally quite solid. Relative acting newcomer Chloe Sirene, actually London-born, also gives a fantastic and completely convincing performance as the Romany Czech refugee, Tasha, struggling against ethnic hatred and pursuing male relatives to gain British citizenship, independence, and find her way in an impoverished and hostile area. Even though a teen the age of Helen's daughter, she shows great strength and resilience in the face of great adversity. The supporting cast also give very solid performances that add texture to the developing story line.Hopefully, this excellent film will make its way into American theaters, at the very least the Art Theater circuit, in the next year. This deserving film definitely should be added to everyone's must-see list.