I caught this film late night on the Sundance channel. It is extraordinarily well done. It's good to see more and more cinema from the UK showing on cable here in the US.
Small Faces doesn't insult your intelligence, and it doesn't have any affectations. Its setting in the 60s is almost incidental; as someone else mentioned, there's no attempt here to glorify or overstate the setting for stylistic reasons.
And I must say, some of the camera-work is beautiful. One shot in particular stands out; Lex stands in a large vacant lot, puddles reflecting the sky, near the Tongs' apartment building. Something in this shot is alternately so deliberately composed for its "ugly beauty" and at the same time completely unpretentious and real and necessary. The kid who plays the lead, Iain Robertson, does an incredible job and seems almost an inorganic part of the urban wreckage around him.
No clichés. No insult to your intelligence. Just a story, well told, superbly acted, and superbly shot. This film is a textbook on how to make a good drama. Just one of many superb films from the UK (another recent good one was The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner) that we've been deprived of over here until now.
First rate.
