Starred Up ****½ ( 2013, Jack O’Connell, Ben Mendelsohn, Rupert Friend) – Movie Review

Starred Up is an awesome, often terrifying film finding new ground in the old prison movie territory.

Jack O’Connell is incredible as the deeply troubled 19-year-old Eric, who is prematurely transferred from a young offenders’ institution to an old-style adult jail for being too violent. There he meets a complex set of prison officers and inmates, but also his own long-estranged father Nev (Ben Mendelsohn), who’s spent most of his life in jail. This one looks like it’s still in the Victorian era.

Eric tries to go it alone, but gets pulled into various tentative relationships. He rages, battles and seems to enjoy getting into violent situations, though he vaguely starts to learn his rage could be overcome in his group work with prison therapist Oliver (Rupert Friend). The middle-class therapist is working against all odds to help prisoners who don’t want help while trying to battle prison officers hostile to his efforts or just uncaring. He thinks he can make a difference, make people change, handle their anger, but he’s way out of his depth and deluding himself.

This is a film where everyone seems way out of their depth. Everything seems worthless and pointless and useless. It’s a scary film, dealing in a lot of desperation, hurt and negatives, and ultimately this is the real scary thing, more than the violence. Is there any hope anywhere, any caring, any worthwhile help?

Mendelsohn and Friend also give excellent performances but it’s O’Connell’s film and it’s his personality and acting that make it what it is, convincing and compelling.

There’s a load of realism in the intense, fluid direction by David Mackenzie (Young Adam, Hallam Foe). Not every aspect of it rings quite true. Eric emerges a bit too physically unscathed from his fights, for example, and doesn’t really seem hard enough or big enough to survive these kind of odds. But you can let that go. Starred Up persuades you.

The heated, meaningful, finally poignant writing comes from Jonathan Asser in his first screenplay. Asser, a psychotherapist who worked in the penal system, won Best British Newcomer Award at the 2013 BFI London Film Festival. ‘I took the prison drama genre and reworked it,’ he says. It’s an inspired makeover.

The UK release is March 21 2014.

Long story short: Astounding movie, Jack O’Connell’s a star.

http://derekwinnert.com/young-adam-classic-film-review-477/

© Derek Winnert 2013 Movie Review

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com/