Movies about Youth culture
Standing somewhere above and outside the rest of the typical teen film medium is where you will find this 1984 John Hughes hit. What exactly the secret sauce was for this film is hard to pin down. The fact that it was fully written, directed, and produced by Hughes has something to do with it. Other contributing factors to its success and longevity are undoubtedly the fact that Molly Ringwald and Hughes always seemed to be just the right actor/director combination for what they were doing. The rest of the casting is essentially perfect as well, if there is another staple ingredient for early Hughes films beyond Molly Ringwald doing a great job of being Molly Ringwald, it’s definitely Anthony Michael Hall doing a great job of being nerdy and funny. To be fair, everybody fits their part precisely. Emilio Estevez is good and adds something to the two absolutely on fire performances by Judd Nelson and Ally Sheedy. Hughes seems to have known what he was looking for.
All these factors are part of it, sure, but what makes this film a definitive hit that adds to the youth culture canon is less easy to summarize. Decades after it was made it still enjoyed popularity, it was in regular rotation on cable through the 90’s and 00’s. It has been referenced, mocked, and imitated by many lesser entries in the teen film library. Kids watching it today still like it, and though its relatability for a teen audience has no doubt faded from where it once stood, it’s now seen as something of an 80s classic. Before that it was usually considered essential viewing for anybody born in the 1970-1990 range. That is a solid run for a 37 year old movie made on a million dollar budget, shot in one room, using high school Saturday detention as it’s foundation.
What makes it such an enduring piece of teen movie cinema? Maybe it’s the fact that the central idea was really good, a day in Saturday school detention with an odd mix of students. Many a typical white 1980s high school kid is given an avatar in this crew. All of these are still mostly recognizable and believable teens, and it still works. Maybe it was Hughes ability to have an ear for and actually recreate a certain kind of believable dialogue among his characters, including teenagers. The film would work as a play, dialogue, character development, and atmosphere are all center stage. So, is it the premise, the writing, the casting, or when it was made? It is probably all these things combining in just the right way.
Unlike other films on this list the movie isn’t particularly evocative of its time. Breakfast Club doesn’t rely on a lot of contemporary references, the kid’s outfits don’t scream 1980s, it just takes place in the 1980s. Its place in time might be most notable from the way it treats its subjects with a new seriousness and respect. This may well be another part of its staying power. John Hughes wrote and or directed some of the most well-known and remembered films that focus on American teenagers. Most of his output in this medium is from the mid 1980s, and all of it is worth a viewing, Hughes transitioned to comedy and family films in the early 90s and famously stopped working altogether ten years before his untimely passing. His work, of which “The Breakfast Club” is just one great example, upped the game on youth culture films.
7. Heathers (1989)
Now regarded as the definition of a sleeper hit, this dark comedy about girls who go beyond mean and get into savage territory, was not popular when it was released in 1989. Today it is a beloved and macabre little bit of nastiness. Although it has a good bit of 80s going on in the fashions and soundtrack, where it shines is in just going for it with a very dark plot.
Taking a deep dive in the completely awful dynamics of high school cliques, budding queen of weirdness Winona Ryder ends up going on what amounts to a killing spree. Teaming up with an early career Christian Slater who leans hard into his poor man’s Jack Nicholson schtick, they basically execute some of the most egregious “Chad” and “Karen” type characters in teen film. If it isn’t clear by this point, this is a very weird movie, but it knows it. Oddly the way the screen death unfolds is not reminiscent of a slasher film, but instead plays out as a series of deadly revenge games. Ultimately the psychotic J.D., played by Slater is responsible for most of the mayhem and eventually Ryder’s character Veronica has had enough. Look for a strange moment with J.D. and his dad and the memorable final scenes.
Although it’s uncomfortable to recognize, the idea of a pair of sweethearts going on a murder rampage is an absolutely real scenario that has played out more than once. Remember the juvenile delinquency issues worrying the cookie cutter society of the 1950s? Some of that was real, including when a leather jacket wearing greaser named Charles Starkweather, with his girlfriend along for the ride, killed 11 people in two months between 1957-58. That episode and more like it have been lifted for movie ideas several times. The idea of killer kids gone wild was once a common element in youth culture cinema. “Heathers” stands out because it twists this theme enough to make a movie that is surreal and absurd while still having a lot of evil chuckles. The movie relies on Winona Ryder and Slater to make it engaging and watchable even as it explores some real bad ideas. Making this movie today would have chances in the slim to none territory which is probably just fine.
A sequel was discussed as well as a tv series but neither have seen release yet owing at least in part to an issue of tone deafness in contemporary times. A movie like this, that blends extremely dark comedy with serious topics doesn’t need to be made again and it would be almost impossibly tricky to pull off. That said, between its release and the writing of this list, a few films have tapped into at least some of the black gold. Notably 1995s “Doom Generation” and 1999’s “Jawbreaker” both featuring celebrated performances from Rose McGowan. Given everything that has transpired with high school gun violence in the years since and the increased recognition and understanding around issues of teen suicide, projects like this, although influential and worth seeing, are probably better off as curiosities than staples of teen movies. “Heathers” is uncomfortable and so were a lot of the members of its audience, it seems to suggest a that the kids are not all right. That was true whether a relatively conservative 1989 America wanted to admit it or not.
8. Boyz n the Hood (1991)
This film belongs on any list of youth culture films, films of the 90s, and any list talking about important movies made about America and the people living in it. Set in two time periods, the film lays its narrative groundwork in the 1980s with the characters as young kids. The films later half and dramatic climax is set against the backdrop of what was then a crime ridden but nevertheless vibrant and culturally resonant Crenshaw neighborhood in early 90s Los Angeles CA. That city in that time was one of several that was experiencing crime waves and socioeconomic strife that would lead to many consequences including future federal crime legislation that led to massive growth in the incarceration of young men of color. This movie draws a lot of power from another breakout ensemble cast driven by Cuba Gooding jr. and O’Shea Jackson sr. aka Ice Cube. The leads are assisted movie mainstay Laurence Fishburne and an up and coming Angela Bassett. It also represents the directorial debut of too soon departed director John Singleton.
Exploring complicated topics that are still difficult for the country, the film touches on structural inequality, issues in policing, education, and crime. Director Singleton brought these topics to American screens with his singular voice and vision. Part of the film’s vitality is that it does an excellent job of depicting the moment in time, but also for contemporary viewers creates an uncomfortable sense of how much has remained painfully the same. Scenes like the one where Laurence Fishburne’s character talks about the disintegration of urban neighborhoods, or when SAT scores are singular determinates of the future hit hard. Singleton would expand on these themes in other excellent entries like 1995’s “Higher Learning” and the 2001 film “Baby Boy”. For those inclined this would be a good starting place to explore the underrepresented aspects of Black America in youth culture films. Along with Singleton’s other films, Spike Lee’s famous “Do the Right Thing”, and Barry Jenkins 2016 Oscar winning “Moonlight”, are must see.
There are certainly other entries exploring American youth culture for people of color. Most are worth looking at and easily recommended, some of them veer into comedy and mixed genres. The films here are given to provide a counterweight to the elements of the suburban white middle class dominance of the other films on this list. None of them do this more effectively than Boyz n the Hood.
9. The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)
A film adaptation of Steven Chbosky’s book, the author turned to directing and getting it on the big screen. Chbosky held out on the rights until someone was willing to let him helm the film which certainly paid off for the audience. Set in the early 90s both the book and the film do what the other successful films on this list do. It taps perfectly into the moment where the story unfolds, the styles, the soundtrack, and the general vibe evoke a certain piece of the 1990s the way that people lived it.
This movie isn’t looking for laughs and doesn’t need to, it is an intimate exploration of experiences with an intelligent but troubled young man navigating high school. Successfully making friends with some older kids, the main character Charlie has a big year. The movie does a nuanced and realistic job of dealing with familiar but always significant topics. Charlie reveals and navigates mental health issues with his new friend group whether he want to or not. With respect to this particular part of the story, the film should be credited with its take. This is not an after school special and everything stays realistically messy but not hopeless.
The other main characters Sam, played well by Emma Watson, and Patrick provide the main character and audience with channels to use for Charlie’s growing up. He and Sam deal with a complicated romantic tension that will be familiar to anyone who had older female friends when they were in high school. In much the same way as it addresses other things, realistically and with an eye toward how life is really lived, the film examines the relationships and social issues that stem from the third primary character. Without any tokenism or forced signals of virtue, Charlie’s freind Patrick and his sexual orientation provide important inflection points for the story. Still challenging for many teens and adults today, being gay in the 1990s was not an easy experience. If you enjoyed the 90s tv show My So Called Life”, and really who didn’t right? Well, you will get into this movie.
Although it did well when it was released ten years ago this film seems to have been swallowed up by the steady firehose of content available to audiences today. If this kind of film is to your liking or if you want to watch something a little different, give it a shot. If you have a jones for some 90s nostalgia this film will deliver, but not in blunt way, just through hints in its tone, atmosphere, and definitely in the soundtrack. Writer/director Chbosky does not have a massive output, active most recently by directing the film version of the musical “Dear Evan Hansen”. His film version of his own book is a high quality late entry in the American youth culture section.
10. The Edge of Seventeen (2016)
Hailee Steinfeld is a powerhouse and has been proving it in movies since her first big role in the Coen brothers take on “True Grit”. Edge of Seventeen is a good contemporary movie in this youth culture niche but the star’s ability to really bring it in her roles makes it more than that. The film isn’t talking about any earth-shattering material, but it does examine how lots of things are earth shattering for teens and young adults. This story is heavy on laughs but doesn’t resort to anything over the top like so many other of the more recent teen focused movies. One shot gags and mugging for the camera aren’t a big part of this movie. Instead, good writing and a solid cast alongside the main character provide layers of humor and humanity. The supporting players, like Woody Harrelson as a believable mid-career social studies teacher who likes his students but is not in love with his job, exceed expectations. Relatability is clear and present with the characters in this movie and a big part of why it works.
First time director Kelly Fremon Craig knew what she wanted to do with this movie and did it. Edge of Seventeen is a great example of how movies in the American youth culture genre still get made as well as why they can still be worth our time. Watching this movie, viewers familiar with teen films might feel some strong similarities to another director’s entry on the list. It’s evident that Edge of Seventeen has some very tangible John Hughes vibes. It’s a similar kind of honest and truthful film making from a director who was clearly willing to tap into what works about those films. This proves to be a positive as it almost an homage in some very good ways.
At this point the movie is only about 5 years old and it’s too soon to say, but it might serve to be a great example of teen life for the last decade. Given the elements that made it successful, both with box office audiences and critical reception, that isn’t a stretch. It’s early yet in the 2020’s and many things about life have been disrupted for America and everywhere else recently. What that means for US youth culture cinema remains to be seen, but this picture is for sure one of the better recent entries.
Youth culture on screen
As I’ve noted, US film-makers made various attempts to represent – and indeed to ‘exploit’ – what they saw as the beatnik phenomenon. Several of these films displayed characteristics of a slightly earlier Hollywood cycle of juvenile delinquent (or ‘JD’) movies, which I’ve written about in another essay. Films like The Cool and the Crazy (1958) Beat Generation a Sada rebelů (both 1959) offered salacious images of sex, drugs and crime, alongside implicit or explicit moral warnings about the dangers of such behaviour: they were intended to appeal to voyeuristic impulses on the part of adults, as well as to the growing cinema audience of young people themselves.
British films on the same theme are harder to find. Celou Noc (1962), directed by Basil Dearden, is an updated version of Shakespeare’s Othello featuring a young Patrick McGoohan as an aspiring jazz drummer; while Taková dívka (Také známý jako Teenage Tramp, 1963), directed by Gerry O’Hara, focuses on the risks of promiscuity and sexually transmitted diseases. Both are set in London, and contain references to the youth culture of the time, but neither can really be called ‘youth’ films. However, in this section I want to look at two rather different films – both conveniently released in 1959 – that do have youth, and youth culture, as their central theme.
Expresso Bongo
Expresso Bongo is a satire on the contemporary music business. Written by Wolf Mankowitz and produced and directed by Val Guest, it was based on a successful West End musical that had been staged the previous year. The film tells the story of a talent agent named Johnny Jackson (Laurence Harvey) who attempts to revive his fortunes by taking on a new young rock-and-roll musician, Bert Rudge (Cliff Richard). He visits Bert’s family, who live in a run-down East End tenement, and persuades his parents to sign a contract on his behalf. Although Bert protests that he doesn’t want to become a star (he prefers playing the bongo drums to singing), Johnny transforms him into a teen idol, renaming him Bongo Herbert. Johnny’s wheeler-dealing secures him a TV appearance on a discussion programme about ‘teenage rebellion’, and then a recording contract: before long, Bongo Herbert is hitting the charts. However, Johnny’s efforts to control Bongo are eventually out-manipulated by his record label manager and by Dixie Collins (Yolande Donlan), an older American star who takes him under her wing. His ambitions thwarted, at the end of the film Johnny returns to his earlier passion of jazz drumming. The film is set in London’s Soho, amid strip clubs, brothels and salt beef bars; and Bongo Herbert is ‘discovered’ in a thinly veiled version of the famous Two I’s café.
Na jedné úrovni, Expresso Bongo is a vehicle for Cliff Richard (although his screen debut had already taken place earlier that year, in a British ‘JD’ film called Vážný poplatek). In some respects, the narrative re-enacts Cliff’s ‘discovery’, much in the manner of Příběh Tommyho Steela, a successful 1957 film that tracked the eponymous star’s rise to fame. Although the narrative centres on the Laurence Harvey character, Cliff gets to sing three songs and appears at one point in a shapely pair of swimming trunks. As K.J. Donnelly notes, the sequence of music in the film effectively prefigures his later career. His first song, ‘Love’, is delivered to a young audience in the coffee bar, and its wild beat is matched by some fast editing: notably, it is sung in an American accent. The second, ‘Voice in the Wilderness’ (which was the major hit) is a slow balled that is sung primarily to please older listeners, particularly the record label manager and the host of the TV show (Gilbert Harding, performing ‘as himself’). Finally, under Dixie’s tutelage, he is seen performing a cheesy dedication to his mother, ‘The Shrine on the Second Floor’ on a traditional stage variety show, accompanied by a choir. In both these latter cases, the songs are much more mainstream ‘Tin Pan Alley’ material, and the editing and visual composition are significantly more sedate and conventional. Through this sequence of songs, Bongo Herbert effectively makes the transition from youth culture to mainstream ‘show business’ – a transition that was replicated through the films that Cliff Richard himself made in the following few years. Although he was initially hailed as Britain’s answer to Elvis, any vague aura of youth cultural rebellion that might have been apparent at the outset was quickly dispelled as Cliff’s career progressed; and for the ensuing decades, he has been synonymous with wholesome family entertainment.
Expresso Bongo is a critique of the music industry, albeit a fairly mild one. Johnny is a likeable Cockney shyster character, who cynically builds the buzz of media interest: Bongo’s appearance as the representative ‘modern teenager’ on the TV show, alongside a psychiatrist and an archbishop, echoes a similar scene in Absolutní začátečníci, to be discussed below. Nevertheless, Johnny is eventually outsmarted by Gus Mayer, the more established record label manager (who largely conforms to a familiar Jewish stereotype). All Bongo really wants from his success is a red scooter (another echo of Absolutní začátečníci), but he gradually becomes uncomfortable with the way he is being manipulated: Dixie alerts him to the fact that he is getting a poor deal from his manager, and he complains that he is just something Johnny sells, ‘like rat poison or fish and chips’. Dixie rescues Bongo, by visiting his mother and pointing out that his contract is worthless (Bongo was ‘under age’ when it was signed); but she only does so in order to secure him for Gus and for her own show, with which she is seeking to revive her flagging fortunes. As this implies, the film largely takes an adult point of view: Johnny and the other adults make the running, while Bongo is merely the innocent victim. In this sense, it can seen to reflect some of the wider adult responses to the emerging youth culture of the time that I have already described.
porazit dívku
Vydáno téhož roku, porazit dívku was marketed in the US as another ‘JD’ film, under the title Wild for Kicks. The theatrical trailer features scenes of wild dancing and sexy display, while the commentator intones as follows:
Wild for Kicks. The vivid and shocking portrayal of modern youth who grew up too soon and live it up too fast… The daring motion picture that takes you behind the scenes in a world where anything goes. A world of beat girls and defiant boys… It’s wild, wild, wild for kicks, a motion picture that will leave you breathless.
The trailer gives a very prominent place to a sequence from the film in which the young people have a car chase, and then lay their heads on the railway tracks in the path of an oncoming train, in a game of ‘chicken’, accompanied by some wild jazz on the soundtrack. And in case the reference wasn’t clear, a caption helpfully informs us that this is ‘the most exciting film of its kind since Rebel bez příčiny«.
Nicméně, porazit dívku is a rather less sensational film than its trailer implies. Unlike Expresso Bongo, nebo skutečně Rebel bez příčiny, this is clearly a ‘B movie’ – that is, a low-budget independent production. Directed by Edmond Greville, with a ‘mod jazz’ soundtrack by John Barry, the film was delayed on release because the film censors objected to some scenes set in a strip-club, and to the ‘chicken’ sequence: an edited version was eventually granted an ‘X’ certificate.
The film focuses on a young art student named Jennifer Linden (Gillian Hills), the rebellious daughter of a celebrated and wealthy London architect, Paul (David Farrar). The film begins as Paul returns home with his new wife, a younger French woman called Nichole (Noelle Adam). Paul is keen that Jennifer should become good friends with Nichole, but she is cool and hostile towards her stepmother’s overtures. Jennifer is then seen sneaking out of the house to join her friends in the Off-Beat café, a Soho coffee bar: these include a singer (Adam Faith), who is clearly potential boyfriend material. Through various coincidences, Jennifer discovers that her new stepmother used to be an ‘exotic’ dancer, and (it is implied) a prostitute, in Paris; and she confirms this by meeting with Greta (Delphi Lawrence), a performer at a nearly strip club, who once knew her. When she has an argument with Nichole about staying out late, Jennifer threatens to reveal this information in order that her stepmother will ‘keep out of her life’. After a night out at Chiselhurst Caves (a fashionable but rather tame music venue on the outskirts of London), Jennifer and her friends engage in the various forms of ‘delinquent’ behaviour featured in the film trailer. This culminates in an impromptu party at Jennifer’s house, in which she starts to perform a strip tease dance before her father reappears and ejects what he calls the ‘jiving, driveling scum’. Despite her parents’ attempts to discipline her, Jennifer is drawn to revisit the strip club, where she is preyed upon by the sleazy owner, Kenny (Christopher Lee). As Kenny makes a pass at Jennifer, he is stabbed – and while Jennifer is briefly detained, it quickly emerges that the real culprit is Greta, who has killed him out of jealousy.
porazit dívku has gained a reputation as a ‘cult’ film, partly because it features early appearances by performers who later became much more famous (including the singer Adam Faith, Christopher Lee in a rare non-horror role, and Oliver Reed, who has a small part as one of Jennifer’s friends). However, its notoriety also derives from its self-conscious and rather heavy-handed portrayal of the generation gap, and of youth culture. There is some absurdly ‘cool’ lingo in the exchanges between Jennifer’s well-bred friends, much of it delivered in crisp upper-class English accents. After Dave performs one of his Eddie Cochrane-style songs, they chime in with lines like ‘he sends me, daddy-O, I’m over and out!’ and ‘straight from the fridge!’ Much of the dialogue is self-consciously smart and epigrammatic, laden with quotable lines: love, Jennifer suggests, is just ‘the gimmick that makes sex respectable’, while smoking is ‘the juvenile delinquent’s first vice’.
The rather wooden confrontations between Jennifer and her father are particularly notable in this respect:
Paul: I’m trying so hard to understand you.
Jennifer: You don’t really ever look at me, not really. None of you squares ever do. You see what you want to see – a group of teenagers lumped together under one label. But we are us, nothing to do with our parents. I am me, Jennifer Linden, a complete, whole, independent living person.
A little later, her father questions her use of fashionable language, and she responds:
Jennifer: It means us, something that’s ours. We didn’t get it from our parents. We can express ourselves, and they don’t know what we’re talking about. It makes us different.
Paul: Why do you need to feel so different?
Jennifer: It’s all we’ve got. Next week, voom, up goes the world in smoke. And what’s the score? Zero. Now, while it’s now, we live it up. Do everything, feel everything, strictly for kicks.
Jennifer’s comments are partly a generalized statement on behalf of all teenagers (‘us’), but they are also particular to her affluent, upper-middle-class upbringing. The family home is designed in an avant-garde modernist style, with sleek polished surfaces and floors, more like an art gallery than a family home. Jennifer’s father is obsessed with a modernist architectural fantasy called ‘City 2000’ that he is planning to build in South America – a city in which any noise will be eliminated by large concrete baffles, and people will be able to escape from each other. ‘Human neurosis comes from too much contact with other humans,’ he claims. To underline the point, Jennifer accuses him of being ‘dried up’, and argues that he doesn’t know the first thing about the people (‘us’) who will have to live in his new city.
As this implies, the film’s portrayal of the relations between the generations is highly self-conscious. In the scene in Chiselhurst Caves, Dave and another friend, Tony, offer a historical account of their seemingly confused position. Dave describes how he was born in the underground shelters during the Blitz, and later played on the bomb sites. Tony talks about how his mother was killed by a bomb, and how his father, an army General, told him to keep a ‘stiff upper lip’ and not to cry – ‘it’s not manly’. In stereotypical fashion, both bemoan the fact that adults will never understand them, and that they are constantly being told they are too young. Meanwhile, in a later scene, Tony’s upper-class girlfriend Dodo (Shirley Anne Field) performs the sultry song ‘It’s legal’ – ‘think of the things that we can do without even breaking the law’. Although he seems to have working-class origins, and wears a leather jacket and a cool snarl, Dave is also far from threatening: he eschews alcohol, and (at the very end of the film) refuses to get into a fight with a group of Teddy Boys who have trashed his car. Such things, he suggests, are merely ‘kids’ stuff’, or ‘for squares’.
While Jennifer is the obvious point of identification throughout, she is also shown as rather spoilt, and not a little confused. On the one hand, she is an innocent child – and indeed, when her father accuses her of being ‘childish’, she responds ‘Why not? I am a child’. Yet she is also precariously teetering on the edge of adulthood. When her friends play ‘chicken’, she is the one who keeps her head on the railway line the longest; and later, at the party, she chooses to strip off to her underwear, with the clear intention of arousing the Adam Faith character but also of defying her stepmother (she frequently looks over her shoulder to her parents’ bedroom). She also chooses to return to the strip club, where the sleazy owner invites her to come with him to Paris in order to learn the art of stripping. While the strip-tease sequences provide some obvious fodder for what film theorists call ‘the male gaze’, it’s striking that some of them are intercut with large close-ups of Jennifer’s watching eyes: her fascination with the world of the strippers is clearly motivated by more than a desire to get revenge on her stepmother.
As in other films of the period, female delinquency in this context is principally about sex. As Janet Fink and Penny Tinkler point out, Jennifer’s ambiguous position here reflects a wider awareness of the threats and risks posed particularly to young women as a result of wider social changes – including the growth of commercial youth culture. Jennifer is from a ‘broken’ family (we do not know why her parents have divorced): her father laments that fact that he has been absent, and that they have not been a ‘complete unit’. She is also independently mobile in a range of potentially dangerous urban spaces, and well able to evade adult control. As a result, she finds herself in an awkward in-between space, trying to make sense of conflicting signals and imperatives: whether she appears as an innocent young girl or as a mature woman depends on how she is treated by adults, and by how she chooses to appear herself.
Predictably, order is restored at the end of the film. Bursting out of the club, Jennifer calls for her father, and is last seen going off arm-in-arm with him and her stepmother. Meanwhile, having walked away from his confrontation with the Teds, Dave drops his broken guitar in a waste bin and proclaims: ‘funny, only squares know where to go’. However, the re-imposition of adult authority is by no means as absolute or as disciplinarian as it is in other ‘JD’ films of the period: adults may offer a kind of wisdom, but most of them are flawed and damaged, and some are positively dangerous. Young people, it seems, will still have to find their own way.
5 Films about UK Youth Culture to Watch Before You Travel
Those who haven’t travelled to the UK often has a very romanticised view of our culture and lifestyle from watching Downton Abbey and Hugh Grant romcoms – but in truth the UK and its film industry is a whole lot more diverse than that.
Láska nebeská a Deník Bridget Jonesové captivated many a romantic dreamer, but that’s not all the UK film industry has to offer. The more popular UK films might leave viewers thinking that we all live in mansions and drink tea in the countryside, but that’s just not the case. The UK has a plethora of directors making great films about youth culture that deal with real issues experienced by people in the UK in recent decades. While my list of five films aren’t the most wanderlust inducing and probably won’t make you swoon over English traditions, all of them taught me a lot about the socio-cultural background of the country where I grew up.
Trainspotting
Danny Boyle’s adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s cult novel follows the heroin fuelled existence of Mark Renton (Ewan McGregor) and his mates in the dirty back streets of Edinburgh. Our protagonists snub society and domesticity, instead opting to steal televisions so they can shoot up. This visually intense dark comedy asks what life is really about – and whether it even matters.
Toto je Anglie
Tohle je Anglie is Shane Meadow’s quasi-autobiographical take on the misunderstood skinhead subculture of the 1980s. The film centres on the 13-year old Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) who instead of being beaten up by the local skinhead gang in a sketchy underpass unexpectedly finds sympathy and understanding.
Moje krásná prádelna
In a grubby area of 1980s London, Omar (Gordon Warnecke), a young Pakistani, tries his hand at turning a run-down laundromat into a successful business. However, soon Omar finds himself the victim of a racist attack by a punk group which is led by his former lover, Johnny (Daniel Day-Lewis). Moje krásná prádelna is a film that openly tackles issues of racism, homosexuality and class in one fell swoop.
Billy Elliot
Billy Elliot is an emotional but relatively upbeat story about a young boy growing up in the midst of the 1984 miner’s strike. Each character fights with their own crisis of masculinity: while Billy’s father struggles without work and his older brother joins local riots, Billy discovers a passion for ballet. Despite his father’s protests, Billy refuses to trade his dancing shoes for boxing gloves.
Quadrophenia
Based on a rock opera by the Who, this energetic film depicts the moral panic of the 1960s when British teenagers were rioting in the streets. The main character Jimmy (Phil Daniels) and the group of Mods that he’s in with plan a weekend away in Brighton – but so do the Rockers. The result is a violent clash on the beach front where deckchairs go flying and youths are pushed over the promenade.
Though I can’t claim that my life in the UK was anywhere near as gritty or sensational as the protagonists of these five films, I can relate to all of them far better than I can to any film starring Hugh Grant. Times have changed, yet many young people in the UK are still facing similar issues of unemployment, unaffordable living costs and crazy tuition fees which caused protests and riots back in 2010. There is certainly a lot of resonance today.
Have you seen any of these five films? How did you like them?
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