Filth

FILTH

Director : Jon S. Baird

Year : 2013

Genre : Comedy

Rating : ****

Directed by Jon S. Baird, 'Filth' is the big screen adaptation of the volcanic 1998 novel by 'Trainspotting' author Irvine Welsh. Starring James McAvoy, John Sessions, Imogen Poots and Eddie Marsan, 'Filth' tells the story of police officer Bruce Robertson, a Scottish cop whose interests seem to be more focused on lackadaisical decadence and taking a deadly amount of drugs rather than enforcing the law. Combining the surrealistic bizarreness of a movie like 'Fear & Loathing In Las Vegas' with the hilarious but ultimately tragic elements of 'Withnail & I', 'Filth' is a brilliantly acerbic non - stop rollercoaster of coarse profanity, hard drug use and meaningless sex. Featuring a career best performance from the usually calm and collected James McAvoy as well as a fantastic supporting cast from some of Britain's finest actors such as Eddie Marsan, John Sessions, Jamie Bell and Jim Broadbent, 'Filth' is a well acted and beautifully directed exercise in shock and depravity that is sure to become a massive cult hit in the future. However, while the characters are extremely memorable and the comedic value is high, 'Filth' has an oppressively black heart and a darkness that is sure to turn away the more righteous and moral viewer. There are moments of vile and putrid racism, a rampant strain of misogyny that runs in the blood of the main character and the ending of the film is anything but positive. Having said that, 'Filth' is still a very evocative watch that fans of Welsh and McAvoy should enjoy immensely and while I have no desire to ever watch it again, the movie is sure to stay with me for many weeks and months to come.

Bruce Robertson (McAvoy) is a severely damaged individual whose reliance on cocaine and whisky has taken a huge toll on his profession. Working as a police detective in Scotland, Robertson in charge of solving the murder of a young man at Christmas time; a case that may secure a hallowed promotion in the force and will finally set his life back on track. But as his intake of drugs increases and his grip on reality quickly slips away, Bruce is caught in a whirlpool of self abuse, copious intoxication and casual sex with his colleagues wives; a whirlpool that could soon spell doom for the promising policeman.

Starting off as a rude and crude comedy, director Jon S. Baird delights in showing us some of the most depraved and vulgar imagery I have seen this year and thanks to a hair raising performance from McAvoy, the characters and the situations are both twisted-ly hilarious and subconsciously disturbing. Rated '18' for very good reason, the film relishes in showing us hard, graphic drug use (substance abuse that makes 'Trainspotting' look like 'Mary Poppins'), vivid and realistic sex scenes and brutal and violent beatings. Nearly every single frame of this movie has an element that will disgust but thanks to the great directorial eye of Baird, the nature of the material never seems to be exploitative or crude for the sake of crudeness. By surrounding the film with the atmosphere of Christmas, 'Filth' successfully involves us in the reality of the characters and the situations they are put in, allowing the film to become much more of a character study of a man whose life has been utterly destroyed by the vices of drugs and alcohol rather than purely an exercise in creating squalor and reprehensibility. However as the movie plays on and the sanity of the central 'protagonist' begins to ebb away, 'Filth' becomes much darker and more oppressive and for me, this is where the movie really takes off. Displaying the complete hopelessness of addiction and the powerful grip that drugs and alcohol have on millions of lives today to great effect, Bruce Robertson becomes a vessel into which the fears and terrors we have about the current state of our country can be poured into. With drug abuse at an all time high, it is strangely upsetting a frighteningly close to home to witness a man completely dissolve from reality purely due to his need for cocaine and while the movie tries to toy with our emotions by combining the imagery with a strangely upbeat contrapuntal soundtrack, we are never drawn away from the underlying tragedy and opaque future of 'Filth'. Yes, the intended funny moments are indeed funny and the actors all give great comedic performances. But when the film switches gears and becomes much more centred on the complete mental collapse of Robertson, 'Filth' becomes a much more difficult watch; a watch that ends up being much less entertaining and much more of an endurance test. 

As mentioned, James McAvoy is astonishingly good as the main anti-hero but while his character is certainly emotive and entertaining, Bruce isn't likable or personable in any way at all. This does makes it almost impossible for us to sympathise or agree with any of his actions in the movie and this does prevent us from attaching ourselves to him in any way at all. Rather than rooting for him, we want him to fail in his ambitions and leave the innocent lives he is destroying well alone. While this helps to add to oppressively bleak nature of 'Filth', it also makes it very difficult to like the film as an entire piece. There are a few funny performances; Jim Broadbent is fantastic as a zany scientist-like psychiatrist; a turn reminiscent of Aubrey Morris' brilliantly eccentric Mr. Deltoid from Kubrick's monumental 'A Clockwork Orange', Eddie Marsan as one of Bruce's naive and oblivious friends and Shirley Henderson is terrific as always as an adulterous and whiny housewife who finds comfort in the arms and the legs of the drunk cop. But at the heart of the movie is McAvoy and while his acting is indeed extraordinary, his character is so repulsive and vomit inducing that it makes 'Filth' almost unbearable. I really love James McAvoy and it is great to see an actor take a role that is so against his usual protagonist archetype and maybe we will see much more adult and meatier roles for him in the future, although I can't imagine any would be more adult than that of the odious and disgusting Bruce Robertson.

I admire 'Filth' greatly but the more I think about it, the less I like it. I left the cinema feeling invigorated and spurned on by tenacity of the direction and the explosive performances. But as the weeks have passed and the film has sunk deeper and deeper into my psyche, I have realised that the movie is far more black and bleak than another other I have seen in a long while. There is no silver lining and just like 'Withnail & I', 'Filth' ends on the cruellest of punchlines. It is great to see a director go out of his way to make a very adult and mature movie and if the box office figures are anything to go by, 'Filth' has certainly touched a nerve in our country; figures that would make the late conservative battleaxe Mary Whitehouse's head explode like  the most famous scene from 'Scanners'. Be warned, 'Filth' is not a childrens or teenagers film by any stretch of the imagination and their is plenty of material in the picture that is sure to offend and disgust many, many people and while I was personally revolted by the movie, I can't not recommend it. The acting is too good to miss and I am sure that in the hands of a less capable director, 'Filth' could have become one of the most controversial and reviled films in British cinema history. As it stands, it is a powerful, haunting and deeply disturbing piece about the dangers of addiction and the lengths some people will go to get what they want in life, all kept afloat by a barn storming performance from James McAvoy and the eye scorching direction from Jon S. Baird.