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When Elizabeth Guinness (
Patsy Kensit, TV's
Holby City) arrives at the mansion of widowed scientist Richard Keaton (
Simon MacCorkindale, TV's
Casualty) to care for his eight-year-old son, Andrew, the dramatic, mysterious death of the child's mother, Alycia, still looms. The hostility between father and son is obvious, and with time, so is the pulsating chemistry between Elizabeth and Richard. An unexpected visit from Jillian, who shares a steamy past with Richard, reveals layers of deceit and lies surrounding Alycia's death. But, no matter how incriminating evidence is for Richard, Elizabeth just can't pull herself away from the in! toxicating gaze of his eyes...the eyes of a possible killer.Colin is a brazen 19-year-old with his finger on the pulse of Soho's burgeoning scene of artists. But when his beautiful girlfriend Suzette tires of their poor and struggling existence, Colin finds himself losing touch with himself and her. And when an older, richer man sweeps Suzette away, a devastated Colin embarks on a desperate journey to win her back!A commercial disaster upon its release in 1986,
Absolute Beginners is an uneven but often stunning attempt at revitalizing the movie musical with postmodern sensibilities. Director Julien Temple was making his first foray into dramatic features after an impressive string of music videos and documentaries (including the first of two Temple-directed profiles of the Sex Pistols), and he upped the stakes by harnessing his visual ingenuity to a period piece exploring London's social transformation at the edge of the '60s--a fleeting moment in the pop zeitgeist! that may as well have been the Cambrian Age to Temple's MTV-g! eneratio n audience. This is post-World War II London turning the corner from economic austerity, giddy with jazz and early rock, yet to witness the Beatles and the Stones.
Adapted from Colin MacInnes's novel, the story follows Colin (Eddie O'Connell), a young Londoner looking to find his place in the world. A budding romance with the intoxicating Suzette (Patsy Kensit) as well as crises of conscience over social responsibility and financial gain are the plot threads in a story that arguably tackles too many Big Ideas, including adolescent identity, British racism (directed at West Indian immigrants) and class prejudice, and capitalism itself, embodied by David Bowie as unctious, superstar executive Vendice Partners.
In wrestling with such valiant ambitions, Temple and his young cast establish the film's musical soul in a canny synthesis of '80s English pop with postwar bop and the seeds of Mod culture. Onscreen performances by Fine Young Cannibals, Sade, and Kensit, a Bow! ie production number ("Motivation") that cribs from Busby Berkeley, and a wonderful sequence with the Kinks' Ray Davies as Arthur (a likely nod to his own band's 1969 rock opera) are all well realized. Less obviously, Temple salutes the period's forgotten jazz legacy through a score from the late Gil Evans, and in the jaw-dropping, bravura opening sequence, an extended single-camera journey through Soho set to Charles Mingus's joyous "Boogie Stop Shuffle" that is itself reason enough to see this brave musical. --Sam SutherlandBrand New 8x10 Female Celebrity Photo
