Nil by Mouth (1997) a retrospective
Gary Oldman’s directorial debut is still a tour de force and still horribly shocking
The date is Sunday 19th January 2025, a cold near sub zero day in the heart of the English midlands, and I’m purposely dating this particular retrospective article as last night I ventured back into the South East London world depicted so brutally and so very bleakly in Gary Oldman’s directorial debut for the first time in two decades, and I found the same incredible debut feature I watched many times all those years ago and it still retains every inch, every minute of brooding intensity, every threat of intimidatory outburst of unspeakable violence I remembered from this quite brilliant, but horribly disturbing film from the late 1990’s.
There are many through lines to Gary’s debut film as a director: from being products of our environments, alcoholism, drug dependency, desperation, isolation, a lack of human warmth and love and particularly so the lack of a male father figure as Gary so pertinently ends the film with a dedication to his own Father. But the central theme I saw last evening and which intertwines through every strand and through line of the film is addiction, in many and varied guises, and Ray is as hopelessly addicted as every one of his friends and family just trying to get by and, another of the film’s through lines, survive.
From the film’s earliest frames “Ray” (Ray Winstone) is if not spoiling for a fight he’ll certainly accept one when it arrives. Ordering drinks at a crowded bar in a busy social club he’s already brimming and bubbling with anger and whilst it becomes readily apparent and so early in the film that Ray is dependent on alcohol and the supposed softer end of Class A drugs, he’s far more dependent and addicted to anger and violence and being a somewhat loud and brash leader of men who are simply his childlike and even childish worshippers and followers. Teller of tall tales and in the vernacular perhaps of the times a “wide boy”, Ray has spent time in prison, a father of two children of whom he is estranged from one, distant and oblivious to the other and all the while he largely ignores and verbally abuses his wife “Val” (Kathy Burke) who is heavily pregnant with his third child. Ray’s best friend “Mark” (Jamie Foreman) is more than a little dependent upon and addicted to Ray, the tales he tells, the life he leads, the desperate scrapes they grew up dealing with and the modern day violence Ray now metes out to his great delight. Peripheral characters such as “Danny” (Steve Sweeney) and even Val’s Mum “Janet” (Laila Morse) and Grandmother “Kath” (Edna Dore) are addicted in their own respective ways to the life and struggle for survival in the bleak darkness of Gary Oldman’s South East London and never is this unremitting and pitch black struggle for survival more starkly portrayed than in a truly remarkable performance from Charlie Creed-Miles as Ray’s Brother-in-Law “Billy”.
Whereas Ray dominates and book ends the film with a truly unspeakable act of violent evil at the beginning of the third Act, Billy’s downfall and addiction to heroin depicts a continuously difficult to watch film in even bleaker tones of desperation, robbery and a somewhat addiction on top of the physical drug addiction: the buzz and the adrenaline high of scoring after the desperate chase and before the soul crushing comedown and the wheels of a broken life from a broken family and yet another missing male figure in his life, turn once more. Billy’s character here, a soft hearted desperado born of his environment, reminded me of a friend who shall remain unnamed from the very period this film was set and released and from the city of my home so eerily painted on screen in this film. Although born 70 miles from South London, my home city of Portsmouth is here in this late 90’s film, the bleak, cold dark grey council flats of my youth, the older neighbourhood chancers and petty villains, the uncouth vernacular of the streets (the use of the “C word” breaks records galore here!) and I simply saw a life or outside world I wasn’t that far removed from growing up writ large on the screen and here again over two decades later.
How can I recommend this film to you after painting a black as coal picture of unsettling violence and unremitting misery? Well that’s maybe a rhetorical question even beyond my own remit. So perhaps I’ll conclude by stating that as a film this is one of the finest debuts you’re ever likely to see and from the bitter you’ll find the sweet of a musical soundtrack of blues specially arranged for the film by Eric Clapton as well as a selection of songs magically juxtaposed against the bitter and the sweet of the film, from “Las Vegas” by Tony Christie as the wide boys traverse the seedy underworld of London’s Soho district, “What Do You Want?” by Adam Faith during a relaxed night of fireworks, “My Heart Belongs to Daddy” as Val dances without a care in the world with her Grandmother Kath before, at the urging of the family, Kath sings “Can’t Help Lovin’ Dat Man”.
Remarkable debut film from Gary Oldman.
Horribly grim.
Highly recommended.
Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.
Whilst you’re here I may as well brag about the release of my two recently self-published books. Both are free to read if you subscribe to Amazon Kindle “Unlimited” or reasonably priced in both paperback and hardback. Go on, treat yourself or a loved one and help out an Indie Author! Buy the books if you’re financially able to. They also look far, far better in print!
We HAVE to keep the spirit of reading books alive and well.
Thanks.
"still life, with gooseberry" - link to Amazon
"Rasputin and Raspberry Jam" - link to Amazon