Scotland’s finest films Being Human ●
after himself. Long since left home, the young man has set his sights on a career in news journalism in America. May’s beloved daughter Roberta, on the other hand, needs all the nurturing a mother can provide. Roberta’s young, and she has Down’s syndrome. Kenny, meanwhile, has no intention of looking after anyone other than himself. He can’t even keep his relationship straight with girlfriend Ruby (Henderson). So, when Kenny’s mother reaches her final days, the boy has to make the difficult decision between career and family. AfterLife charts a fairly straightforward course through the domestic drama of family responsibility, but en route it explores touchy subject of euthanasia. When we first meet Kenny as he’s rather bullishly interrogating a British doctor who may or may not have involvement with a Swedish pro-choice organisation (which gives the film its title). Kenny’s mother’s illness, we soon find out, is the reason for the hack’s behaviour. As AfterLife draws to a conclusion, the question of choosing life or death becomes an issue for May, Kenny and Roberta – and the film’s somewhat surprising ending generates a good deal of pathos. Duncan, McKidd and Henderson give their director Alison Peebles, working from Andrea Gibb’s solid script, decent performances. Sage, in particular, shines; she gives a great naturalistic and punctuates the serious drama with a good deal of humour. (MF) American Cousins (Donald Coutts, UK, 2003) 121min. Shirley Henderson, Gerald Lepkowski, Danny Nucci, Dan Hedaya. Fleeing back home to America after a blackmarket deal with a bunch of Ukranian gangsters goes wrong, wiseguys Settimo (Hedaya) and Gino (Nucci) set down and lie low with blood relative Roberto (Lepkowski) in Glasgow. Holed up in Roberto’s fish, chip and ice cream café and unaware the vengeful Ukranian’s have hired a pair of Scouse killers, Settimo and Gino are delighted to acquaint themselves with the honest, hardworking Scot, his grandad, Nonno (Russell Hunter), and the unrequited love of Roberto’s life, Alice (Henderson). Just as The Godfather and The Sopranos explore the historical connection between America and Italy, so too does American Cousins touch on the relationship between Scotland and the
Old World. And screenwriter Sergio Casci, who was inspired by his own greatgrandfather’s migration from Italy to Scotland, makes some amusing observations about the clash of cultures between the ItalianAmericans and the ItalianScots. In one scene the yanks and jocks argue food: pizza versus fish and chups. The resulting ‘cook-out’ sees a mafia mobster burning his pinkies whilst deep frying a battered fish. The cando/will-do yanks are, of course, the catalyst for the stoic Roberto to assert himself and make some much-needed changes in his life: dealing with the local debt collector, expressing his love to Alice. It’s a sweet, fun film, if a little cliched in places. But Coutts makes the most of his likeable cast, and the bookending of the film with the bulky presence of Vincent Pastore (Pussy in The Sopranos) is a canny casting move. (MF)
The Acid House
Being Human (Bill Forsyth, UK/Japan, 1993) 122min. Robin Williams, Maudie Johnson, Max Johnson, Robert Carlyle. Forsyth’s opus about four incarnations in the life of one man, opening at the dawn of time and subsequently set centuries apart, was a critical and commercial disaster. Which is a great shame, because there’s much to admire in what was the writer-director’s last good film (the long time coming Gregory’s Two Girls turned out to be the real disappointment). Perhaps the more serious tone of Forsyth’s eighth film sat badly beside the jovial whimsy and eccentric humour that had made the previous seven so popular. And by quietly, idiosyncratically detailing Scottish lives and communities in his previous films, it’s arguable Forsyth had boxed himself into a corner. Certainly Being Human is a difficult film in its own right. Sombre tone apart, it’s hard to feel much affinity for Hector (Williams in acting as opposed to schmuck mode), a strangely subdued protagonist unwittingly undertaking a personal odyssey, or four personal odysseys, to discover the meaning of courage. Full marks to Forsyth, however, for expanding his range with grander schemes and themes than he’d tackled before. And anyway, despite the expansive time scale and the use of locations scattered across three continents (filming took place in the Highlands as well as England, America and Morocco), Being Human remains a Bill Forsyth film. Just as he made poetry of the grey skies of Cumbernauld in Gregory’s Girl, so too
Being Human
The 50 Best Scottish Films of all Time THE LIST 5