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Jacobin Hails Self-Funded Movie as 'Best Film About Working Class Britain in Years' [1]
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Date: 2023-03-02
The poster from the film 'Nobody Loves You and You Don't Deserve to Exist' (Image: Serious Feather/Wainwright)
‘Nobody Loves You and You Don’t Deserve to Exist’, the debut feature film by British writer/director, Brett Gregory, is currently receiving a significant amount of political attention in both the US and UK for its bleak yet powerful exploration of the effects of neoliberalism on the working class in the north of England.
Reviews from publications such as Jacobin (‘a political triumph’), The Morning Star (‘5 Stars’) and The UK Socialist Party (‘a masterpiece’), all praise the film’s unique and compelling blend of social realism with cinematic surrealism to tell its story of Old Jack, a grieving ex-English teacher wasting away on welfare benefits after being made redundant in the historical city of Manchester.
Following an unwanted voice from the past the audience are swiftly taken on a dark and tense journey through the tragic-comic fragments of Old Jack’s shattered past where we explore his experiences as an abused council estate kid in 1984 during the reign of Margaret Thatcher; his anxieties and hallucinations as a university student in 1992 through John Major's premiership; and his existential crises and fears as a welfare benefits claimant in 2020 under Boris Johnson’s rule.
The self-funded film, which took Brett and his 45-strong cast and crew an incredible six and a half years to complete, showcases Manchester’s 19th century Gothic architecture alongside derelict public spaces, and aging council housing beneath extravagantly new high-rise tower blocks. A clear delineation of the long shadow power has always cast over poverty throughout history.
A still of Manchester Cathedral from the film ‘Nobody Loves You and You Don’t Deserve to Exist’ (Image: Serious Feather)
In turn, its extremely timely and vital anti-establishment stance with regards to, for example, the cost-of-living crisis currently sweeping through the United Kingdom, as well as the myth of meritocracy and social mobility, is memorably enunciated by standout performances from the three lead performers.
This is especially the case with ‘Peaky Blinders’ actor, Reuben Clarke, who, despite being 11 years old, delivers a heart-breaking and age-defying 10 minute unbroken monologue exploring his aspirations to escape his abusive and suffocating underclass environment.
The film follows a journey through the character’s shattered past (Image: Serious Feather)
The physical and thematic connection with the young Bruno Ricci (Enzo Staiola) in De Sica’s ‘The Bicycle Thieves’ (1948) is both uncanny and apt.
In short, ‘Nobody Loves You and You Don’t Deserve to Exist’ is a ‘must watch’ for any discerning progressives who are deeply and actively concerned about the economic and political inequality which sunk its teeth into the Western world in 2008: a nefarious neoliberalist nightmare which only original cinematic art like this can help us all awake from.
This title is currently available to buy, rent or stream on Amazon Prime Video in the US and UK.
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