Director: Ben Wheatley
Screenplay: Steve Oram, Alice Lowe, Amy Jump
Starring: Steve Oram, Alice Lowe
Synopsis is here:
In 1996; school disco halls everywhere were loud with the sounds
of awkward shuffling and the heartfelt warbling of Gary Barlow and
co. Before disbanding in 1996 (and reuniting in 2006), Take That released their
cover of the Bee Gee's hit ballad "How deep is your love".
The couple we follow within Ben Wheatley's Sightseers would have been around 16
at that point. I'm sure that you can imagine either of the two, sitting alone,
mouthing the words. All the while, their friends (if any) were victims of cheeky
gropes and similar tomfoolery.
Upon watching the
film; I found myself asking: "Is anyone surprised that two people like
this would find each other?" I certainly wasn't. Nor was I surprised.
Due Tina and Chris being in such a young, developing relationship, their
passion is what you call...intense.
Said intensity is
key for a director like Wheatley, and perfect for a movie like Sighterseers, a
film which, like Four Lions, revels in thorny issues for its comedy.
It's Natural Born Killers (1996) by way of Dear Deirdre; gleefully
wrapping it's lovers on the lam narrative around
Fargo-style eccentricities. The film even inverts the impotency issues
that Arthur Penn's Bonnie and Clyde (1967) delved into. It's not like neither
character can articulate their lustful thoughts (just take a glimpse
Tina's knitted, crotch-less panties), but there's a drollness in that while
Clyde excelled in looting paper, Steve can barely place his thoughts down on
any. Beatty's Clyde may not have been able to get it up, but you sense he may
have had enough charm to write a book.
Literacy issues
aside, Steve (a quietly sinister Oram) is a messy quagmire of lust, rage
and loneliness, desperate to introduce Tina into his world of caravanning,
local sights and premeditated murder over trivial incidents. Tina (a
superbly comic Lowe), a withdrawn young woman, living in the palm of her
controlling mother (a callback to Wheatley's 2009 film Down Terrace), seems to
become more besotted by Steve due to his method madness. Is she intoxicated by
the violence she's encountered? Or did the darkness just need to be
awakened? At one point, Tina is insulted in a way that
seems exaggerated at one point, but feels on point later on. We're
never really sure about the two, other than their passion. Clues are laid, like
Kill List (2011), Wheatley suggests things, but he never runs for an easy
answer.
The holiday is
often the test of the relationship and it is no different here. The
relationship slowly degrades as their unstable personalities clash
and circumstances close in. But Wheatley has coated the situation with
such rich British idiosyncrasy that he manages to unlock mirth within
the macabre. He toys with British politeness and tolerance in a way
that reminds me of Serial Mom (1996), John Water's camp subversion of
the suburban American Household. Sightseers's is angrier than
that, and has more to comment on. The films cinematography is quick to
highlight just how entrancing The Lake District can be, and yet it's is completely
lost on these murderous characters. It is lost on us as well, as we're too
busy indulging in their darkness. But there's the joke. We watch
the observational comedy, smirk at the all so true moments with passersby and
secretly delight at the couple’s murder spree and we forget how
their intentions seemed good.
What I love about Sightseers
is just how passionate Chris and Tina are about themselves and what they
do, even if it's completely
immoral. The observations found in the script are not only infinitely quotable
but often endearing, although; you would probably be a little more pensive with
a Daily Mail reader. The film’s title, holds a certain irony to it, as the
films climax suggests that the Chris and
Tina themselves are "nice enough" to visit but not the type
of people to stay with. They're the type of couple that is considered
"just a bit off". The final decision made by the couple is
sweet, humorous and yet haunting. It asks the question that Gary,
Robbie and the rest of them were banging on about, back when we only had two lonely
singleton teens. How deep is your love?
