A child’s journey to discover his true nature.
Richard Gorodecky’s Little S**t means to defy expectation, though in the end, it doesn’t really say anything new. It starts with showing us a young boy, Paul (Badger Skelton), causing trouble on the streets of London: spitting on folks, running away from hooligans, etc. We then see Paul’s home, with his debilitated, presumably dying, mother, and we think, “Oh, now we get it, it’s the circumstances that shaped a potential prodigy into the rascal that he is. Shame on society!”
“…it’s the circumstances that shaped a potential prodigy into the rascal that he is. Shame on society!”
I’m being overly harsh on a Richard Gorodecky’s cute 13-minute homage to films like 400 Blows, shot in gorgeous black-and-white by James Miller. There’s a certain lyricism in Little S**t’s central performances, Skelton and McGuire’s, the latter shedding a tear over a nervous cigarette, therein saying volumes with a simple gesture. As for Skelton, I can see him being a lead in a Michael Winterbottom film.
As an expression of a groundbreaking idea or a means to express it, Little S**t doesn’t particularly succeed. However, it showcases a director who knows how to handle actors and a cinematographer adept at capturing beautiful visuals – and sometimes that just happens to be good enough.
Little S**t (2018) Written and Directed by Richard Gorodecky. Starring Badger Skelton, James Backway, Tommy Jessop, Ashley McGuire, Jasmine Jobson, Georgina Minter-Brown, Eddie Weber.
6 out of 10
