Review of Treacle Jr. (2010) by Mike M — 13 Jul 2011

Surfs a breezy, odd-couple vibe, pitting Fisher's self-effacing gentleness against Gillan's powerhouse comic performance - a nutcase turn to rival Paddy Considine in "A Room for Romeo Brass" or Peter Ferdinando in "Tony", yet somehow more sympathetic than either.

There's a downside to all this scene-hogging: the film has as little time for its sole prominent female character (Riann Steele's moneygrabbing slattern Linda) as any American bromance, and indeed the whole never quite shakes off a slight, sketchy feel, being self-evidently the work of a director feeling their way back to full filmmaking strength after the disappointment of an illustrious failure.

What Thraves has done here, in effect, is to retreat to the lo-fi means that made "The Low Down" the small charmer it was. The move liberates him to a certain degree, but the new film is notably less psychologically perceptive about its characters (Fisher gives him wounded heart, but Tom remains a cypher) and prone to the same jarring shifts in tone that sunk "The Cry of the Owl": there's at least one potential stepping-off point in a cacophonous kitchen scene that tries to cram into two square metres domestic abuse, the pulling of a knife, and the bewildering pathos of an errant asthma inhaler.

For all that, its considerable virtues shine through: Gillen gives a performance big enough to sustain three or four of these features, Thraves makes something oddly touching of the drawing of a marker-pen knob-and-bollocks on a plastercast, and the pay-off is as sweet as you'd maybe expect from a movie named after a kitten.

"Treacle Jr." is a rough diamond.