Don't Worry About Me
Helen Elizabeth and James Brough in Don't Worry About Me
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By Darren Estwick. |  |
Monday, 12, Oct 2009 10:35
Showing at the London Film Festival on October 24th (18:30), October 26th (14:00) and October 29th (19:00)
General release not yet confirmed
By Lewis Bazley.
David Morrissey returns home to Liverpool for his feature debut but while some wonderful lighting gives the Merseyside city a romantic and melancholy feel, the film is let down by a stretched script and unsympathetic male lead.
Helen Elizabeth is excellent as bookmaker's worker Tina and carries a lifetime of hurt in her kind brown eyes. But her co-star and fellow writer James Brough is boorish and steadily erodes any audience affection for his spurned Southerner, lost in Liverpool after a failed attempt at lengthening a one-night stand. There's an unfortunate reminiscence of David Walliams' Lou from Little Britain to his stranded Londoner up north and the homespun wit of this frequently engaging two-hander is undermined by the blokey idiocy of his character.
Morrissey's work behind the camera is hugely promising, full of wistful shots across the Mersey and quietly intrusive angles while Elizabeth should go far.
But some contrived conflict and Brough's remarkably awful character means the film fails to escape its stage origins.