Bath Film Festival 2008

Better Things

One assumes that there is only one kind of ‘realism' (yet many types of ‘non-realism'). After all, isn't there only one kind of reality? Canneslauded director Duane Hopkins' debut feature exposes the absurdity of this. His is an unflinching realism, quite unlike that of Ken Loach or Mike Leigh and devoid of condescension or pleading. In Better Things we witness a community of lives led in quiet and not-so-quiet desperation: teenagers struggling with the complexities of love and drugs, older folk filled with angst, and the very elderly cast adrift. The distances between these individuals seem too wide for words or feelings to span, yet meaningful contact, so keenly desired, remains a possibility, and is occasionally achieved. This is offset by an acute poetic sensibility and a real feeling for the evocative atmosphere of landscapes, strikingly captured by cinematographer Lol Crawley. CB

Producer of Better Things Samm Haillay answers audience questions after the screening.

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