Review
ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE MIDLANDS
Starring Robert Carlyle and Rhys Ifans.
Directed by Shane Meadows.
Now playing
Globe Cinema
While there may be more fish-and-chips stands than saloons in Nottingham, British director Shane Meadows’s third film, Once Upon a Time in the Midlands still counts as a western of sorts. Like so many horse operas, this is the story of a menacing outlaw whose return threatens to destroy the bonds that hold a community together.
Instead of someone like Clint Eastwood’s vengeful cowboy in High Plains Drifter, Meadows offers Jimmy (Robert Carlyle), a rough-hewn Glaswegian charmer and small-time crook with a short temper and an ardent desire to reclaim what he believes is his.
After Jimmy sees his ex, Shirley (Shirley Henderson) refuse a wedding proposal from boyfriend Dek (Rhys Ifans) on a TV talk show, he decides to come back to the family he ditched years before. Even though she said she wasn’t ready to get married again, Shirley’s devoted to Dek. So is her adolescent daughter Marlene (Finn Atkins), who is upset to see that neither Shirley nor Dek provides much opposition to her prodigal father when he slips back onto the scene. The focus of the story then shifts to the hapless Dek’s efforts to overcome his cowardice and defend his homestead.
With its broad humour and appealing cast of British stars (which also includes Kathy Burke and the terrific Ricky Tomlinson), Once Upon a Time in the Midlands is calculated to be more of a crowdpleaser than the director’s melancholy, sharply observed earlier features, Twentyfourseven and A Room for Romeo Brass. Although Meadows’ Limey western shtick works better than you might expect – John Lunn’s mock-Morricone score is appropriately grandiose and Brian Tufano’s cinematography lends a mythic quality to Nottingham’s cluttered homes, hilly streets and imperfect lives – the story is ultimately too slight and too sappy for the movie to be more than a good-natured lark. But if you ever wondered what High Noon might be like if Gary Cooper had a weakness for bangers, beans and mash, now you know. |
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