Its links to the Oscar Wilde story may be tenuous, but the dramatic debut of Yorkshire-born writer-director Barnard is a drop-dead masterpiece of its kind, a brilliant, boldly cinematic tour de force that leaves the viewer gasping for breath.
As a portrait of confused and alienated youth, it stands in
a long tradition of British cinema that can be traced back beyond Ken Loach's Kes, of which it is so conspicuously reminiscent. Andrea Arnold (Fish Tank) and Lynne Ramsay (Ratcatcher) are other women who have trodden this path before, but Barnard brings a distinctive visual sensibility to her storytelling that marks her as a standout talent.
Her film's young hero, Arbor (the improbable name is a nod to Barnard's last work and, possibly, to Wilde's story too) is a clinically hyperactive, serially truant teenager whose savvy, streetwise exterior fails to hide his obvious fragility.
In an early scene, more by good luck than good management, Arbor and his chubby, slightly dimwitted offsider Swifty (Thomas), come by some valuable copper cable which they sell to the thuggish local scrap-metal dealer Kitten (Gilder). The earnings - more than their whole street makes most weeks - open up a glorious world of possibility and Arbor greets his expulsion from school as a godsend since it presents him with the opportunity to go into serious business. It gives little away to say that things go seriously, tragically wrong.
To their credit, Barnard and her brilliant cinematographer Mike Eley don't belabour the scrap-heap metaphor, though it's hardly obscure; better still, they find a sylvan beauty in the hills around Bradford that reminds us there was a green and pleasant land beneath this dark, satanic social distintegration.
