Cherrybomb At JDIFF: Ivana’s Review
Warning: the review contains mild spoilers
Cherrybomb aka Anti-Disney!
These days, the movie directors, whether newbies or established names, like to play it safe. Few filmmakers are willing to make movies that might be dubbed risky, controversial, or upsetting. This is especially true of the movies intended for younger audiences – as if the kids cannot digest anything but sugary cheesy movies filled with dance routines and a compulsory happyend. Luckily, the pair of Cherrybomb directors, Glenn Leyburn and Lisa Barros D’Sa, although newcomers, were brave enough to take a risk; they decided to omit sugar from the recipe, and to present us with a stylish, yet realistic portrayal of contemporary teenagers.
A few words of information for those of you who do not live in the UK (which Belfast is a part of): the UK has the highest rate of teenage pregnancies in the developed world; kids as young as 15 get stabbed or beaten to death every day; drugs are easily accessible (a line of cocaine can cost as little as £2); and, binge drinking and drug abuse are widespread among all social classes and generations. Alas, this is real life, and the directors didn’t shy away from the sad reality.
In Cherrybomb, we are introduced to some colourful teenage characters – the leading trio, their friends (the “Carpark gang”) – and the adults around them: be it “ordinary people” or drunkards, drug dealers, “businessmen”. The story is a pretty simple one, and I assume that a majority of you know it already – two best friends Malachy and Luke meet a beautiful girl Michelle who has just moved back to Belfast from London (her dad is Malachy’s boss Dave Crilly). She challenges the boys to compete for her affection, and things soon get wild and crazy. But there’s so much more to Cherrybomb than this main premise. All three leading characters are complex and wonderfully nuanced; the fact that the protagonists are 15-16 year olds explains their insecurities, their inability to acknowledge their true feelings, their bravado, their recklessness, their overly emotional response to things happening around them, and – their stupidity.
Let’s start with Michelle. She is a girl deprived of parental love – her parents are divorced, and clearly disinterested in their own daughter who they treat as a tennis ball. Michelle’s mother sends her to live with her dad, because she can’t cope with her behaviour, but the said dad has other things on his mind – he’s busy running the leisureplex and shagging a teenage girl who also happens to be Michelle’s friend. Crilly’s selfishness frustrates his “princess”, and in turn she deliberately goes against his advices and initiates the ultimate rebellion.
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