It’s been quite the year for films that look for inspiration in the autobiographical. James Gray returned to his childhood in Queens for “Armageddon Time,” Steven Spielberg reflected on the origins of his love for cinema in “The Fabelmans,” and Alejandro González Iñárritu investigated the pained ripples of diaspora and guilt in “Bardo: False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths.” In 2022, one more semi-autobiographical film will grace the screens, Gary Oldman’s BAFTA-winning directorial debut “Nil By Mouth.” Back to British cinemas for the first time since its original release in 1997, the film has been recently remastered in celebration of its 25th anniversary. Audiences had the chance to watch the new 4K remastering firsthand at a special event at the BFI London Film Festival this week, the first of many landmark anniversary celebrations, including a four-week Gary Oldman season at the British Film Institute, a wide U.K. re-release, and a special limited two-disc edition Blu-Ray.
READ MORE: The Essentials: Gary Oldman’s Best Performances
After establishing himself in the early ’80s as one of the most prolific British actors of his generation in both theatre and film, with lauded performances in titles such as Mike Leigh’s “Meantime” (1984), Alex Cox’s “Sid and Nancy” (1986) and Alan Clarke’s “The Firm” (1989), Gary Oldman first ventured into directing with a story close to his heart. “I felt that if it was going to be a first film, write what you know,” he recently told Sight & Sound during an in-depth interview celebrating the film’s re-release. In 2022, Oldman will celebrate yet another quarter-century anniversary: his sobriety. This intimate understanding aids the brutish honesty with which “Nil By Mouth” approaches addiction, one of the film’s central issues.
The rage-fuelled words spattered by hoodlum Ray (Ray Winstone) echo across the bleak walls of a grey-washed council estate in New Cross, South London, where the man lives in a cramped flat with his partner Valerie (Kathy Burke) and Valerie’s young daughter from a previous relationship. Tangential to the two is a series of satellite characters, including Valerie’s brother, Billy (Charlie Creed-Miles); their mother, Janet (Laila Morse); and Ray’s best friend, Mark (Jamie Foreman).
Ray is a raging alcoholic whose only coping mechanism is violence. He makes a living out of undisclosed criminal indiscretions, his dodgy van always headed to trouble, his buddy Mark faithfully in the driver’s seat. When at home, his hand is weighed by the need to slap, smash and pull, the anxious frenzy of unmanageable wrath leading his bulky body to a permanent state of motion. He skips steps in a rush to come in and out of the building blocks he believes to own, trotting the streets of New Cross as a bull, horns sharp and ready. He enters pubs as if making a statement, dispensing cordiality in favor of sheer contempt. In his mind, no one can do him right — his partner is unwilling to cut him some slack, birds are merciless teasers, geezers are hopeless sad sacks, and youths are blinded by their pathetic need for gear.
Sitting on the unfortunate prime seat of the receiving end of such spitefulness is Valerie, played with chilling efficiency by Kathy Burke. A woman made meek by fear, Valerie often mirrors Shelley Duvall’s horror-stricken Wendy Torrance, eyes scanning rooms in fear, thin dark hair framing sunken bones, joy an ever-elusive commodity. The men in her life are a source of constant dread when all she craves is simple solace. Her brother has a severe drug addiction, piercing his veins with the frenzied eagerness of the helpless. As night falls, darkness obscuring self-awareness, Billy shakes furniture and bursts open every drawer in his mother’s apartment, a desperate attempt to find a few coins here and there, something to get him to score one more hit. Just one more. Valerie is stuck between two men who aggressively tug at wood and metal and skin, one to feed his need to destroy, the other to feed his need for release.
By wrecking the tangible, the men in Valerie’s life wreck the intangible, too, a notion never as unflinchingly present as when Oldman builds a lengthy scene consisting of a graphic episode of domestic violence. It is a nauseating display of utter disregard for another being, an explosive, unrelenting burst that challenges the viewer to the extent that could have verged on gratuitous voyeurism and yet does not. This is a testament to Oldman’s vulnerable willingness to revisit the darkest corners of memory in search of not only a sliver of catharsis but also to pull away the heavy curtain of ignorance that separates the cushioned privileged one-per-cent from the reality lived by the other 99.
In this portrayal of a dire socioeconomic reality where men turn to violence and women to perpetual discontent, “Nil By Mouth” pays a nod to British kitchen sink social realism, a movement bred in the late ’50s and rooted in unvarnished authenticity. Oldman’s contribution to this particular strand of British cinema is a remarkable feat, and it makes one wonder why it remains the actor’s only directorial effort.
When asked the question on the aforementioned Sight & Sound interview, Oldman mentioned the difficulties in getting a project properly financed, stating that “if you’re only making money from directing and haven’t done a gig for three or four years and you get an opportunity to do something, I can understand the desperation. You sign off on a budget that isn’t realistic, you don’t have enough days, and you are compromised. I’ve been on sets where that has happened, and I don’t want that.” If Oldman is ever to direct again, only time will tell. Until then, “Nil By Mouth” remains as striking a film — perhaps even more so — as it was a quarter century ago. [A-]
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