It's hard not to warm to the Proclaimers' answer to Mamma Mia!. And James McAvoy impresses in a dark, exhausting Irvine Welsh adaptation
The great Scottish film-maker Bill Forsyth memorably described his timeless gem Local Hero as "Brigadoon meets Apocalypse Now". There's an echo of that dichotomy in the simultaneous opening of two new movies offering opposing views of life north of the border – both fantastical in their own way. In one, we find ourselves in a land of star-crossed lovers who burst into spontaneous song and dance at every opportunity; in the other, we descend into an ever-deepening abyss of squalor, swearing, racism and homophobia, where foul deeds and drug-addled pestilence lurk at each turn.
Let's start on the sunny side. Dexter Fletcher's Sunshine on Leith is a sprightly and unabashed adaptation of the Dundee Rep's much-loved stage show, spinning a Mamma Mia!-style narrative around the songs of the Proclaimers. Anyone familiar with the Brothers Reid's back catalogue will be able to figure out several key plot points in advance; someone will go to America in order to send back a letter; someone else will promise to walk 500 miles, and indeed 500 more; a central character called (Oh) Jean should very probably have been loved; there will be a boisterous proposal of marriage; and everyone will venture from misery to happiness today (aha, aha, aha). As always with such jukebox jamborees, part of the pleasure is in seeing how inventively the writers can string together a coherent story from a random selection of song titles and lyrics, and the cheeky creakiness of some of Stephen Greenhorn's more jarring key changes merely adds to the overall sense of stupid pleasure.
It helps that the Proclaimers' songbook is every bit as sturdily flexible as Benny and Björn's uber-text. We open in an armoured vehicle travelling through Afghanistan in which the assembled squaddies sing Sky Takes the Soul – a surprisingly effective overture ending inevitably in earth and clay. From here we move to Edinburgh where our battle-worn heroes (George MacKay and Kevin Guthrie) attempt to rebuild their lives and loves, picking up the pieces of relationships with friends and family in inevitably circumlocutious fashion.
Hearts are broken and mended, tears cried and dried, children lost and found, secrets and lies kept and revealed. It's easy to sneer at the level of cheesy contrivance with which the dots are joined, but actor-turned-director Dexter Fletcher brings the same gutsy oomph to the proceedings that characterised his previous film, Wild Bill, giving this movie real down-to-earth charm.
The cast are game, too, leading on the front foot as they hop, skip and jump their way across picturesque cobbles and scenic streets, always ready to have a go. Some are accomplished musical theatre veterans (Jane Horrocks – voice of an angel), others not so (Peter Mullan – Tom Waits on meds), but everyone gives it their all. As for me, I shed a tear within the first 10 minutes, and spent the rest of the movie beaming like a gibbering, love-struck fool. By the time Horrocks launched into a hospital bedside rendition of the title song, I was quivering like a jelly on a plate.
With its overwhelmingly upbeat bonhomie, Sunshine on Leith can allow itself the luxury of a fleeting gag about Trainspotting, with which it shares producer Andrew Macdonald, but little in terms of style, content or language. Not so Filth, which has to work hard to avoid unflattering comparisons with what remains the defining Irvine Welsh screen adaptation. James McAvoy (who recently starred in Danny Boyle's Trance) is electrifying as Bruce Robertson, the increasingly rattled member of the Lothian constabulary whose future happiness depends on grabbing a greasy-pole promotion through back-stabbing, double-crossing and general shafting.
Sharp of tongue and unhinged of nature, Bruce wallows in a festive quagmire of obscene phone calls, nihilistic congress, frantic self-abuse and copious hard drug use, increasingly unable to distinguish between fiction and reality.
It's full-throttle fare, bold in its design and rude in its sensibilities, wrestling the complexities of its source novel (the talking tapeworm mutates into Jim Broadbent's Oz-accented shrink) with consistent ambition, if not always success. Yet while Boyle wisely leavened Renton's voyage down the toilet of life with moments of surreal transcendence, writer-director Jon S Baird prefers to hold our head down the bowl, gagging on the pish and shite of Welsh's prose, even when David Soul himself starts to sing.
Absent, too, is the strange affection that underwrote John Hodge's script for Trainspotting, making Filth and its core characters hard to like, despite the sturdiest of supporting casts (Eddie Marsan's bottle-eyed cardi-man and Shirley Henderson's desperate housewife are particular fine) and an admirable fidelity to the spirit of the novel. By the time we reach the denouement, in which the plot's nominal murder mystery descends into an overegged hybrid of Psycho and Dressed to Kill, the acerbic gallows humour and scathing misanthropy have become more exhausting than epiphanic. Still, it's infinitely better than either The Acid House or Ecstasy, with McAvoy's powerhouse performance lifting the entire venture shoulder high, making this a solid silver medal winner in the Welsh-on-screen adaptation stakes.
Star ratings (out of 5):
Sunshine on Leith★★★★
Filth★★★