EXHILARATING’’

JUNE 14, 2016 VARIETY.COM
144
FILM REVIEW
BY ANDREW BARKER
London
Town
Director: Derrick Borte
Starring: Daniel Huttlestone, Dougray Scott,
Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Natascha McElhone
In an era where CBGB can be
reborn as a themed restaurant
at Newark airport, and Iggy Pop’s
musical accounts of heroin dependency
can soundtrack cruise ship
commercials, it’s not such a leap to imagine
the music of the Clash and the squalor
of punk squats in pre-Thatcherite London
serving as the backdrop for a sweetly
lighthearted teenage coming-of-age tale.
But that doesn’t make it any less strange.
Such is the gauntlet thrown down by
Derrick Borte’s “London Town,” which follows
a bright-eyed 15-year-old named
Shay (Daniel Huttlestone) as he struggles
to deal with some tough times in the summer
of 1978, finding solace in the music,
and the person, of Clash frontman Joe
Strummer (Jonathan Rhys Meyers). To be
sure, the film has qualities to recommend
it: Meyers’ portrayal of the punk godhead
is studied and exacting, Borte incorporates
impressively specific visual cues
from actual footage of the era in staging
the live music scenes, and Huttlestone’s
guileless earnestness in the lead role goes
a long way toward finessing some of the
story’s more sentimental confections.
Yet the combination of a cuddly narrative
with one of the grittiest scenes
in rock and roll history ultimately goes
together like cotton candy and Schlitz,
and the people most likely to seek the
film out — Clash fans lured by the ample
music — are likely to be its toughest critics.
Picked up by IFC Films on the eve
of its L.A. Film Festival premiere, “London
Town” has a pleasant sheen and a
deep bench of notable producers, but it’s
hardly a can’t-fail proposition.
Clad in bright sweater-vests and bell
Clashing
Themes
Jonathan
Rhys
Meyers
plays Joe
Strummer.
CREDITS: An
IFC Films release
of a Dutch Tilt
Film production
in association
with Killer Films
and Culmination
Prods. Produced
by Sofia
Sondervan,
Christine Vachon,
Tom Butterfield.
Executive
producers,
Alastair
Burlingham,
Charlie Dombek,
Lee Vandermolen,
Angel Chen,
Dennis Mykytyn,
Luke Daniels, Jeff
Rice, Matthew
Lamothe, Phil
Hunt, Compton
Ross, Aross N•
Berman, Alex
Cutler, Steve
Knox, Matthew
Brown, Scott
Lochmus.
Directed by
Derrick Borte,
Screenplay,
Matthew Brown,
based on the
screenplay
“Untitled Joe
Strummer
Project” by Sonya
Goldea, Kirsten
Sheridan. Camera
(color), Hubert
Taczanowski;
editor, Brian
Ufberg;
music, Bryan
Senti; music
supervisors,
Iain Cooke, Pru
Miller; production
designer, Laura
Ellis Cricks;
costume
designer, Angela
Billows; art
director, Thalia
Ecclestone;
sound, Christian
Bourne;
supervising
sound editor/
re-recording
mixer, Michael
Perricone;
assistant
director, Marcia
Gay; casting,
Celestia Fox.
Reviewed at
Los Angeles
Film Festival
(competing), June
6, 2016. Running
time: 92 MIN.
CAST: Daniel
Huttlestone,
Dougray Scott,
Jonathan Rhys
Meyers, Natascha
McElhone, Nell
Williams, Anya
McKenna-Bruce,
Tom Hughes
bottoms, Shay is the bullied runt of his
nowhere London suburb, taking care of
his little sister (Anya McKenna-Bruce)
while his Scottish dad (Dougray Scott)
runs a piano shop by day and drives
a taxi by night. Shay’s mom, Sandrine
(Natascha McElhone), recently abandoned
the family, alighting to London to
live in the world’s most urbane punk flophouse,
and Shay is struggling with his
new responsibilities. On a train ride into
the city one day, he meets a tart-tongued,
cute scenester named Vivienne (Nell Williams),
who takes him on a little tour of
the city and plays him the Clash on her
headphones. Instantly enamored of both
the band and the girl, Shay spends his
savings on a copy of the band’s self-titled
debut, as well as a ticket to meet her in a
few weeks at a Clash concert.
Before Shay can make the show, his
father is injured in a piano-moving accident
and left near-comatose, and Shay
is abruptly thrust into the role of paterfamilias.
Over the next few weeks, he
tries to stay one step ahead of suspicious
neighbors and bill collectors; raises
money driving his dad’s taxi, dressed as a
woman to disguise his age; tracks down
his flighty mom, who’s attempting to
launch her own music career; and forges
a relationship with Vivienne.
Oh, and along the way, he keeps running
into Joe Strummer, who shows up
to dole out helpful advice when Shay
most needs it, like a less magical-realist
Humphrey Bogart in “Play It Again, Sam.”
The film, written by Matthew Brown
from an earlier version by Sonya Goldea
and Kirsten Sheridan, never goes too
far turning Strummer into the father-figure
mentor that a sappier script might
make him (he still gets to be a drunken
punk). But it’s an inorganic way to thread
Shay’s journey in with the band’s story
(or rather, Strummer’s story, as his three
bandmates have scarcely any lines).
Faithfully portraying the original
punk scenes on film is tricky. Unlike the
more shamelessly nostalgic older baby
boomers, who tended to cast every single
concert, acid test, and happening they
stumbled upon in the late ’60s as a society-shaking
revelation, punks always
had a healthy mistrust of idolatry and
self-congratulation. From the Sex Pistols’
“No future” refrain to the Clash’s own
early mantra, “No Elvis, Beatles, or the
Rolling Stones,” the genre’s overarching
ethos makes any straight-ahead, triumphant
biopic of its key figures inherently
suspect, so Borte deserves credit for at
least trying a different tack.
One can’t help but notice, though, the
pulled punches — from the fleeting halfglimpse
of drugs to the lack of palpable
danger, even when gangs of National
Front skinheads start crashing the scene.
The story of the Clash is a fascinating
one, and spotlighting a kid inspired by,
but not a part of, the punk milieu has
plenty of potential. But “London Town”
just never burns brightly enough.
TV REVIEW
BY MAUREEN RYAN
Animal
Kingdom
Series: TNT, Tues. June 14, 9 p.m.
Showrunner: Jonathan Lisco
Starring: Ellen Barkin, Scott Speedman,
Shawn Hatosy
It makes a certain kind of sense
that the crime drama “Animal
Kingdom,” based on a 2010 Australian
film of the same name,
ends up being as deceptive as
the family at its heart. At first, the TNT
show looks as though it may be a promising
showcase for Ellen Barkin, who stars
as the matriarch of a beachside clan that
lives well, thanks to its penchant for cleverly
executed heists.
But in the course of the drama’s first
three episodes, it becomes apparent that,
despite its characters’ shady pasts and
dicey decisions, the show is fairly predictable
and even conventional. Its characters
never really do anything all that surprising:
It’s no shock that a family united
by heists would end up breaking all sorts
of other laws, and anytime anyone on
screen utters the sentence, “There are no
secrets in this family,” that’s the cue for a
scene or two of duplicitous behavior.
Though the cast is packed with solid
actors clearly eager to play morally shady
characters, the writing lacks the depth
and texture that would make the Cody
family’s crime sprees, troubled relationships,
and simmering arguments worth
following. There’s little context and history
behind the “shocking” actions that
are meant to signal that the show is willing
to go to dark places, and this makes
it difficult to care about what occurs or
about the ramifications of those acts.
It’s a tribute to Barkin that she almost
makes Janine “Smurf” Cody work as
a character. Smurf controls the purse
strings — and the emotions — of the
Cody gang. She’s constantly preparing
food for her four sons, who, as “Animal
Kingdom” begins, are feeling restive on
their short leashes. But she keeps them
deprived in other ways; there’s a slightly
incestuous vibe to how she interacts with
all the young men in her orbit, whether
or not they’re tied to her by blood. And
there’s a calculated strategy behind the
way she disciplines her boys by either
withholding her attention or lavishing
them with her creepy love, and Barkin is
charismatic enough to inject those scenes
with ambiguity.
The actress gives the character a
queenly walk and a tough, steely vibe,
but, despite Barkin’s formidable abili-