05/04/13….’Bleak, road trip comedy’ at Thame Cinema

THIS Friday, April 5, Thame Cinema 4 All presents SIGHTSERS. Released in the UK in 2012, the film is 88 minutes long, and a 15 certificate. It is Directed by Ben Wheatley, Starring Steve Oram and Alice Lowe.

This bleak British road trip comedy has earned four or five star reviews from film goers and critics alike. Tina lives a life apparently trapped into permanent singlehood, supporting her needy and dependent harridan of a mother. That is until a new boyfriend arrives on the scene ? Chris ? who whisks her away on a dream romantic holiday ? a caravan tour of the British Isles. Chris is disgruntled and malcontent and, it turns out, inclined to violent retribution for any slight ? dropping litter, being a bit pompous and middle class, that sort of thing.

He is, it would seem, a bit of a psychopath. But Tina finds herself joining in, unleashing her erotic potential at the same time as she develops a taste for murderous carnage, finding she shares Chris? violent disdain for most other people.

This blackest of black comedies is a sort of hybrid of Badlands / Bonnie and Clyde / Natural Born Killers and Nuts in May, with plenty of observational comedy reminiscent of Victoria Wood or Allen Bennett, and affection for the northern landscapes and banal tourist attractions. But be warned ? comparisons with Wood or Bennett or Mike Leigh should not lull you into thinking this is comfortable territory: Wheatley well and truly lets rip and simmering tensions and resentments explode into graphic violence. Transgressive, confronting, confident, chilling ? a real one off.

SOURCE: Contributed by Catriona Gilmour Hamilton