Somers Town

Shane Meadows' low-budget production is set in London's titular working-class neighborhood, where a runaway youth, Tomo (Thomas Turgoose), and a Polish immigrant teenager, Marek (Piotr Jagiello), become unlikely friends. After rescuing Tomo from a street gang assault, Marek agrees to feed and provide shelter for his new friend at his home—without telling his frequently drunk father, a laborer who is working on the high-speed Eurostar train line connecting London and Paris. Both boys are clearly outsiders in the city—Tomo because he comes from Nottingham, and Marek because of his shaky grasp of English. They find common ground, however, in their shared infatuation with an older French waitress (Elisa Lasowski) at a local café. Meadows often overdoes the harsh realism with grimy black-and-white cinematography that hammers home the bleakness of the story's underpinnings. Yet unexpected bubbles of offbeat humor help offset the darker aspects, while Turgoose and Jagiello effectively capture the essence of unpredictable and vulnerable youth. Recommended. (P. Hall)