Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Moin Hussain
Starring: Faraz Ayub, Natalie Gavin, Claire Rushbrook, Simon Nagra, Steve Oram, Jeff
Mirza
If M. Night Shyamalan grew up in the English midlands rather than
Pennsylvania, he might make movies like writer/director Moin Hussain's feature debut Sky Peals. Like Shyamalan's films, Hussain's debut bears the influence of
classic American sci-fi and comic books, but it's distinctively British
in its reserved, almost passive storytelling. Like Shyamalan's best
film, Unbreakable, it's in conversation with the concept of superheroes, with a
protagonist who gradually discovers he may not be like everyone else.
Hussain's film asks if Superman could exist if Clark Kent was never made
to feel special.
The title references the name of a motorway service station, where our
protagonist, Adam (Faraz Ayub), works the night shift flipping
burgers. Adam is introverted to the point where he would rather let his
world collapse around him than have to interact with others. His mother
(Claire Rushbrook) has sold the family home to move in with her
new boyfriend, and Adam hasn't gotten it together to find new
accommodation. He reassures his mum that he's staying with a friend, but
he's secretly remaining in the home, dodging estate agents and
prospective buyers.
After walking out on Adam and his mother 20 years ago, Adam's father
Hassan (Jeff Mirza) attempts to contact his estranged son,
leaving a voicemail in which he states a desire to meet up. Adam refuses
to acknowledge the message, but a few days later he receives a call from
his uncle Hamid (Simon Nagra), who breaks the news that Hassan
has died. Hassan's body was found in his car, which had been parked at
Sky Peals for several days. Looking back over the station's CCTV
footage, Adam finds that his father had been hanging around the area for
quite a while. But he also notices soemthing odd; at various points his
father seems to disappear as though erased from the footage. Adam begins
to have similar experiences, momentarily blacking out for several
minutes at a time and setting off alarms as he passes parked cars.
Asking Hamid for details about his dad, Adam learns that his father once
told Hamid he was an alien, not in the sense of being an immigrant, but
an actual alien from another world. Hamid laughs it off, but Adam
becomes obsessed with the idea.
Using a sci-fi conceit, Hussain explores the alienation of being a
mixed race child who doesn't feel comfortable in the world of either
parent. Raised by a white woman but bearing his absent father's brown
skin, Adam finds himself in a cultural limbo. Attending his father's
funeral, it's clear he's never been inside a mosque before, and he flees
his extended Pakistani-British family's attempts to welcome him into
their fold. He carries a mistrust of white people that sees him
defensively retreat even when they're being affable, like Tara (Natalie Gavin), a single mum who takes a job at Sky Peals and befriends him with the
possibility of a romance, or his new boss Jeff (Steve Oram), who
tries his best to bring Adam out of his shell. When a repairman asks
Adam where he's from, Adam takes it the wrong way - the man is simply
asking which part of Sky Peals he works in.
For Adam, the idea that he might be from another world becomes
appealing because it provides an easy explanation for his sense of
alienation. Ayub is quietly compelling in the role, all mumbled answers
and physical reserve. He gives the impression of a man who is afraid he
might lose a year off his life with every sentence he speaks, who views
friendly strangers as emotional vampires sucking his life essence. The
film understands that there's a degree of narcissism in shyness, but it
doesn't condemn Adam for his introversion.
If you spend all your time doom scrolling social media or watching the
news, you can quickly develop the misanthropic belief that the world is
filled with hate, that everyone's a malicious bigot. The truth, as corny
as it may seem, is that most people are nice. Adam views his quest to
uncover his true origins as his own version of Superman retreating to
the fortress of solitude, but ironically it exposes him to the decency
of others. He begins to open up, to welcome gestures of affection, to
look around and realise folk aren't so bad. Like Superman, Adam is given
a choice of returnng to his own world or staying with humans. "You're
not like them," his father's spirit intones. "I'm not like you either
though," Adam replies. It's a moment of realisation for Adam that could
play as tragic but instead it's revelatory. It made me think about how
Spielberg now regrets having Richard Dreyfuss leave Earth at the end
of Close Encounters. Sometimes we might feel like we want to retreat to some metaphorical
home planet, that maybe there's another world that's a more comortable
fit, but we're stuck here on Earth with humans and all their flaws. The
only way to survive is to make peace with the fact that sometimes hell
is other people, but other people can also be heavenly. And sometimes
they make movies as endearing as Sky Peals.
Sky Peals is in UKROI cinemas
from August 9th.
