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Awaydays

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Cert: 18

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Dir: Pat Holden. Cast: Nicky Bell, Liam Boyle, Stephen Graham

 

Description: Paul Carty longs to run with the Pack: the pent-up young followers of Tranmere Rovers in late '70s Liverpool, who get their kicks - literally - by beating up rival supporters or taking a Stanley knife to the face of anyone who dares to strike back. Unfortunately, Paul doesn't have a way in, not even with his box fresh pair of Adidas Forest Hill trainers, until he meets music fan and dreamer Elvis at a gig and the pair become friends. Elvis in turn introduces Paul to gang leader and ex-squaddie John and his angry acolytes, who welcome the new boy with open arms once he proves himself on the field of battle. As Paul becomes a vital cog in the machinery of the Pack, his friendship with Elvis deteriorates, culminating in a heartbreaking confession by one of the teenagers.

Country: UK. 2008. 105mins

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Awaydays follows the crowd

 

Made in Britain: Awaydays

There’s no shortage of movies about Britain’s mean streets and, for the most part, Awaydays runs with the pack. It’s Liverpool, 1979 and soulful looking Paul Carty, (Nicky Bell), yearns to join a violence gang, in this case, a gaggle of football-mad “casuals” as likely to wave stanley knives as scarves. He is initially viewed as a joke but then befriends key player, Elvis (Liam Boyle), proves himself in a fight and becomes a kind of group mascot. Meanwhile, a lower-ranking hooligan, ambitious and more than a little psychotic, commits an act of treachery which spells trouble for them all.

If you’ve seen the over-rated This Is England (or rightly derided Green Street) you’ll know what to expect from Awaydays’ plot. That scriptwriter Kevin Sampson is working from his own cult 1998 novel is irrelevant. He may have helped invent these cliches, but that doesn’t make them a whit less tedious to watch.

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Luckily, there’s a lone wolf in “the Pack”. As played by Mancunian newcomer Boyle, Elvis is more than a poster boy for working class frustration. In fact, his every appearance proves jolting. A sensitive, sarky bit of rough, it’s obvious to everyone but himself (and his gangmates) that he fancies Carty. As with River Phoenix’s Mike in My Own Private Idaho, his unconsummated longing stirs up a photogenic swirl of tension (complemented by the perfect indie soundtrack). That said, his misery is never romanticized - for all his mercurial wit, he’s an oppressive force. In one scene he cuts himself and demands that Carty cut himself too; later, he becomes insistent that Carty try heroin. Deluded as well as insightful, he whines, pines and wreaks havoc.

Elvis doesn’t know what he wants. Sampson and director Pat Holden seems similarly torn - are they making a stolid “yoof” drama or a woozy, gay, almost-romance? They just can’t decide. What links both aspects of the film are the immaculate out-fits: the fresh-from-the-box Adidas trainers, the Peter Storm cagoules, the Wedge haircuts. We have a choice: we can knowingly fetishize these cool kids or fool ourselves that we’re taking an anthropoligical interest in an 80s trend.

Either way, the perversely delightful Elvis deserves better and so does Boyle. The 23 year old actor is a David Thewlis for our times. Let’s hope the world - often uncomfortable around fizzy Northern males - knows what to do with him.

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