This Is England
This Is England is a film featuring a young actor by the name of Thomas Turgoose; he plays a boy named Shaun growing up in 1983 England. Shaun comes from a working class, single parent family; his father was a soldier serving in the Falkland war and lost his life there, leaving Shaun’s mother to raise him on her own.
The combination of Shaun’s lack of a father figure and his adolescent search to find an identity lead Shaun to be befriended and adopted into a local clique of skinheads. He first meets them on his way home from school after he gets in a fight with another student, who makes fun of his clothes. His new friends take him in and give him a sense of belonging he never felt before, and they provide him with a new wardrobe, attitude and identity, at first it seems that this may lead Shaun to participate in some hooligan type activities but his new friends are actually fairly good natured.Things take a turn when one of the cliques’ old friend Combo returns from a prison term and breaks up the group. Combo is outwardly racist and violent and takes Shaun down a path that he ultimately wants no part of.
This is England is a brief film that makes its point and ends, if you are at all fascinated by skinhead culture, this is a must and the character development is a pleasure to witness. This movie is as much a comment on the social climate of early nineteen eighties England as it is a coming of age story and I highly recommend it.
