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What a weird and wonderful era the 1980s was in Britain. If you're fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to remember a time when Maggie Thatcher ruled the television screens and Punk rock continued to make strides in the musical community, then you'll either find yourself feeling overcome with nostalgic excitement or wanting to restrain yourself from smashing your TV to a pulp when you see This Is England's opening montage. Director Shane Meadows has created a film here that is incredibly unpleasant to watch at times, but one that never strays from evoking the individual identity, insecurity and violent bigotry that came with the youth under Thatcher’s reign.

A gritty, northern council estate is the perfect setting for a character study of a twelve-year-old boy named Shaun (played by Thomas Turgoose). Shaun is bullied at school for his clothes and feels lost after his father returned from the Falklands war in a body bag, but is soon adopted by a group of local skinheads who give him that little bit of hope. Like every young person, he yearns for some recognition and someone to talk to, so he persuades his mother (Jo Hartley) to buy him a pair of Doc Martins, lets the girls shave his head, and gracefully accepts a Fred Perry shirt from the funny guy of the bunch, Woody (Joseph Gilgun), just so that he can feel like he’s part of the gang.

However, when a vile and angry skinhead named "Combo" (Stephen Graham) and his two henchmen invade the scene, and begin preying on the minds of the young people to join them in their “battle for national pride”, Shaun’s perspective on who is to blame for the anger he is feeling becomes very wayward. He is encouraged to spit racial slurs to the local Pakistani corner-shop owner, and even intimidate the Asian youths playing football in the street; Shaun’s original gang of friends attempt to warn him of the dangers he is getting himself into, but Combo’s racist mindset always seems far too threatening that they can't properly intervene.

Meadows draws an interesting conflict within the skinhead community here: Woody and the gang are a bunch of relaxed individuals with an interest in the fashion and music of the skinhead culture; while Combo and his henchmen are hateful towards the ethnic minorities, who they consider a threat to the country’s nationalism, as well as their own masculine identities. The psychological manipulation, particularly of Graham’s character, feels so authentic that it is frightening, and it’s heartbreaking to watch his influence transform Shaun from an innocent youth into a cocky, disillusioned “nationalist” blaming the non-white immigrants for all the problems that occur within the country. Credit goes to Meadows’ well-written screenplay and sharp direction for this.

The semantics of nationalism and racism are so eye-opening in This Is England that they have a lingering effect upon the viewer. There is a particular scene where Combo and a few of his hardcore followers visit a bar, and a far-right nationalist speaker attempts to defend his party’s ideologies (“People call us racists. We're not racists, we're realists. Some people call us Nazis - we're not Nazis, we're nationalists.") The people in audience proceed to whistle, cheer and applaud the man, as if they consider him to be the country’s saviour, and we get a real sense of England’s national identity beginning to crumble.

Though Shaun’s vulnerability is exploited by the misguiding ideologies of these aggressive "nationalists", his typically unbigoted attitude is what represents the heart of Britain and anchors the film, allowing us good working-class folks to root for him. Turgoose’s performance is nothing less that astonishing, allowing Shaun to come across as an alienated, pre-adolescent boy who yearns for some form of father figure in his life; on the contrary, Graham appears genuinely arrogant, vindictive and evil, making Combo a despicable character, but one that no doubt has a huge influence upon the people around him.

Being a "skinhead movie", it is inevitable that This Is England gets compared to American History X; however, whereas Shane Meadows' epic portrayal of 1980s Britain isn't as much a social commentary about racism and how to overcome it as the latter is, it is still a very personal and powerful portrayal of youthful rebellion that is utterly relevant. There is a lot crammed into a hundred minutes here, and the drama is incredibly compelling throughout (Meadows' claims that the film is semi-autobiographical); my only criticism of the film is the ending, which feels somewhat irresolute. Still, with this point considered, This Is England is an assured and un-mistakenly English piece of film making, which plays tribute to one of the most definitive eras of British culture. The soundtrack, consisting of ska, soul and reggae music, ain’t half-bad, either.

(C) Andy Carrington, 2008.