The Selfish Giant (2013)

Film: The Selfish Giant (2013)
Stars: Conner Chapman, Shaun Thomas, Sean Gilder, Lorraine Ashbourne
Director: Clio Barnard
Oscar History: No nominations, though it did win Europa Cinemas Award at Cannes and was nominated for Best British Film at the BAFTA's.
Snap Judgment Ranking: 4/5 stars

One of the more interesting things to emerge in recent years in Independent Cinema has been a more pointed look at how the poorest of people live their lives.  Looking at the impoverished and examining their world has always been present in the movies, but it usually involves some sort of rags-to-riches tale or a much glossier, rosier How Green Was My Valley style tale rather than something that truly shows how the income divide has impacted our society.

(Spoilers Ahead) This is what I was thinking as I recently watched The Selfish Giant, a small film that gained a smattering of critical attention last year.  Based loosely on the short story by Oscar Wilde, The Selfish Giant is the story of two teenage boys: Arbor (Chapman) and Swifty (Thomas) who are in an economically-barren part of northern England, where they sell scrap medal to Kitten (Gilder), a local dealer.  The two soon begin to collect copper wiring from telecom and railroads, an extraordinarily dangerous mission that does result in some increased amount of money for both, despite it being highly illegal.

The film takes a turn when Kitten starts to favor Swifty, who is good with his horse, over Arbor, who becomes extraordinarily jealous, and as a result becomes careless with his person, stealing copper from Kitten to sell to a neighboring town, and then eventually being blackmailed by Kitten to steal electronic power transmission wire from a nearby plant, which is of course incredibly risky, and after Arbor convinces Swifty to help him (Arbor is too small to do it by himself), Swifty eventually electrocutes himself on the wire, dying as a result.  The film then ends up going in predictable ways, with Kitten eventually giving up his business and being arrested, while Arbor is forever changed by the loss of his innocent best friend.

If this sounds like a horribly depressing film, you should know that it is.  While always quite realistic and beautiful, this is not a film for the faint of heart, never really relenting in the way that it treats its two young protagonists and their lives.  One of the most memorable sequences is them just walking through the wreckage of this dying town, where people still make their lives, but live in a sea of tiny two-room houses and lawns strewn with junk.  This is not a third world country-this is the United Kingdom-and yet the reality that poverty has reached all corners of the globe in a way that we don't always acknowledge is there.  It's a powerful message amidst a dour but effective story.

Those were my thoughts on the underseen but quite good Selfish Giant-how about yours?  Do you also like the increased focus on economic disparity in "first-world" countries at the movies (Frozen River, starring the late Misty Upham, comes to mind to me this morning of course, but there are plenty of others)?  And what did you think of this movie, frequently powerful in a markedly "life is hard" sort of way?  Share in the comments!