Two for Joy *** (2018, Samantha Morton, Emilia Jones, Billie Piper, Bella Ramsey, Badger Skelton, Daniel Mays) – Movie Review

Samantha Morton is exceptional as a mother deep in depression, in Tom Beard’s striking debut Two for Joy (2018), a bleak but rewarding slice of British social realism.

Writer-director Tom Beard’s striking debut Two for Joy (2018) is an extraordinarily bleak but rewarding slice of British social realism, as a fractured family’s troubles erupt during a stay in a caravan in a seaside town. Two for Joy is on the wrist slitting side, but nevertheless a recognisable artistic achievement.

It is notably well acted all round, but Samantha Morton is exceptional as the troubled Aisha, deep in depression after her husband’s death and battling her kids Vi (Emilia Jones) and Troy (Badger Skelton) being taken into care. Troy befriends a girl, Miranda (Bella Ramsey), staying with her mother (Billie Piper) and uncle (Daniel Mays).

Beard’s screenplay about a family navigating and trying to overcome grief is commendably realistic and credible, while Tim Sidell’s cinematography and Laura Ellis Cricks’s production designs are imaginative and outstanding.

It is filmed at an incredibly dismal-looking Weymouth, Dorset, England, and  Ringstead Bay, Dorset, England, UK, and produced by BFI Film Fund, Blonde to Black Pictures, Creative England and Goldfinch Studios.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Movie Review

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