Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Gino Evans
Starring: Joe Hill, Becky Bowe, Darryl Clark, Darren Connolly
British manufacturing may be in a dire state but the one product
Britain continues to make at a world-beating rate is the gritty social
realist drama. With his debut, Treading Water, writer/director Gino Evans suggests he might be
worthy of comparison with the likes of Ken Loach, Mike Leigh, Lynne
Ramsay, Shane Meadows and Andrea Arnold.
Evans' film is centred on Danny (Joe Gill), a troubled young man
battling a triple threat of heroin addiction, severe OCD and some very
dark compulsions that he worries he might one day act upon. Released
from a prison stretch, Danny enters into a rehabilitation programme that
requires him to live at a halfway house where drugs and alcohol are
banned, and to partake in therapy sessions.
Far from helping kick his habits, Danny's new environment sees him
exposed to more temptation than ever, with fellow tenant Rob (Darryl Clark) passing him baggies when he's unable to score on the street. One
night while looking for a fix, Danny encounters Laura (Becky Bowe), once his schoolboy crush, now working the streets while pregnant
with her second child. Danny is immediately smitten once again, but
Laura insists that their relationship remain that of sex worker and
client. But as Laura falls for Danny's boyish charm, it sets Danny on an
inevitable collision course with her boyfriend Warren (Darren Connolly), who also happens to be her pimp.
In focussing on his characters rather than any political or social
message, Evans leans more towards Leigh than Loach. While Treading Water is set in the sort of world most of us hope we never find
ourselves occupying, it isn't simplistic misery porn, and Evans never
judges his characters for their actions. Everyone here is simply making
the best of the shitty hands they've been dealt. Treading Water is inhabited by likeable characters; even those we distrust are
undeniably charming. There's a distinctively Northern English spirit to
these people, always ready to make a self-deprecating joke or hand a
friend in need another can or spliff. If the narrative has an outright
villain it's Warren, but even he shows a surprisingly sensitive side,
suggesting that for all his faults he's as much a victim as Danny and
Laura.
Evans' film seems initially all too familiar, but it confounds our
expectations at several turns. Nothing is straightforward here. The plot
doesn't follow a simple through-line but rather ducks and weaves down
alleyways and across overpasses, sometimes doubling back on itself. We
want it to climax with a happy ending, but we're never entirely sure
what that constitutes for these people. The dynamic between Danny and
Laura is achingly romantic in a classical, almost Shakespearean sense
(at one point Romeo & Juliet is evoked as Danny screams Laura's name
from several stories below the window of her council flat), and we
desperately want Danny and Laura to get together. But at the same time
we suspect that for their own sakes, they need to go their own separate
ways.
Early on Evans visualises Danny's dark thoughts with a violent fake-out
in the manner of the fantasy sequence from High Fidelity where John Cusack imagines bludgeoning Tim Robbins to death. As
this is repeated throughout I began to worry that it was verging on a
distracting gimmick, but it slowly pays off as we know at some point
Danny might actually act on one of his compulsions, and we're kept on
edge as to when that might occur, and who might be his unfortunate
victim. Danny is a Jekyll living in perpetual fear of turning into
Hyde.
As we've come to expect from such British dramas, Treading Water features impeccable performances. Gill is multi-layered and
sympathetic as the tortured Danny, displaying clownish charm in his
interactions with others while always reminding us of Danny's mental
issues. Bowe is adorable as a soft-centred woman struggling to protect
herself and her daughter by putting on an unconvincing front. Clark is
hilarious as Rob, an overgrown man-child who seems to have decided that
since he's made such a mess of being an adult, he's going to remain a
teenager forever. As Warren, Connolly adds humanity to what could have
easily been a one-dimensional villain. Add these striking performances
to Evans' accomplished first turn as writer/director and you have two
compelling hours spent in the capable hands of new talent portraying the
sort of people you might cross the street to avoid in real life, but
whose company here is intoxicating.
Treading Water is on UK/ROI VOD now.
