Adapted from angry young man Colin Wilson’s novel, this painfully self-conscious drama of drunks and dreamers never comes alive
‘The old days of Soho. Gone. Finito. Kaput.” So mutters a local, complaining about gentrification. Not today, but in the late 50s, the setting of this painfully self-conscious, studenty drama about a young man who turns up in Soho in search of bohemians. It’s adapted from a 1961 semi-autobiographical novel by one of the angry young men, Colin Wilson.
Owen Drake plays Harry Preston, an aspiring writer from the provinces newly arrived in Soho, who decides to investigate what makes the area such a magnet for drunks and dreamers. That leads to an awful lot of tedious philosophising about “Soho-itis”, a fictitious malaise spoken of by locals. Meanwhile, two seriously arty young film-makers in black polo-necks shoot a politically radical documentary, funding the project by making blue movies in a seedy strip bar.
‘The old days of Soho. Gone. Finito. Kaput.” So mutters a local, complaining about gentrification. Not today, but in the late 50s, the setting of this painfully self-conscious, studenty drama about a young man who turns up in Soho in search of bohemians. It’s adapted from a 1961 semi-autobiographical novel by one of the angry young men, Colin Wilson.
Owen Drake plays Harry Preston, an aspiring writer from the provinces newly arrived in Soho, who decides to investigate what makes the area such a magnet for drunks and dreamers. That leads to an awful lot of tedious philosophising about “Soho-itis”, a fictitious malaise spoken of by locals. Meanwhile, two seriously arty young film-makers in black polo-necks shoot a politically radical documentary, funding the project by making blue movies in a seedy strip bar.
- 11/14/2018
- by Cath Clarke
- The Guardian - Film News
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