WHO’S IN IT?
James McAvoy (X-Men: First Class), Imogen Poots (The Look of Love), Eddie Marsan (The World’s End), Jamie Bell (Billy Elliott), Shirley Henderson (Bridget Jones’ Diary), Joanne Froggart (Downton Abbey), Jim Broadbent (Cloud Atlas)
WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?
Jon S. Baird (Cass), director, writer, co-producer; Mark Amin (Frida), Christian Angermayer (Song For Marion), Will Clarke (Attack The Block), Stephen Mao (film debut), Ken Marshall (London to Brighton), Jens Meurer (Black Book), Celine Rattray (Bernie) and Trudie Styler (Moon), producers; Clint Mansell (Black Swan), composer; Matthew Jensen (Chronicle), cinematographer; Mark Eckersley (Dredd), editor
WHAT’S IT ABOUT?
Bruce Robertson (McAvoy) is amoral, manipulative, self-centered, misanthropic, corrupt, racist, sexist, psychopathic… and a Detective Sergeant. With a promotion on the cards which only Bruce can see as being only his for the taking, he sets out to destroy his colleagues’ reputations by sleeping with their wives and exposing their secrets, but it’s not long before Bruce begins to lose himself in a web of deceit that gets quicker and quicker out of control…
WHY SHOULD YOU BE EXCITED?
For raw British unpleasantness that somehow still ends up being entirely watchable, the works of Irvine Welsh are probably your best stop. Most famous for his drug-fuelled novel Trainspotting which, of course, was turned into a highly-received cult film by Danny Boyle in 1996, Welsh – ironically a native Scot – takes the darkest part of our society and creates something that stays with any reader despite how uncomfortable the material is. With his third book Filth now ready to take over cinemas, the challenges that writer/director Jon S. Baird faces are brutal; take a story and character as reckless and brutal on paper as Bruce Robertson and translate him into a three-dimensional character on the big screen.
Surely a task that would make most filmmaker cower in fear, but Baird’s secret weapon lies within another native Scot: James McAvoy.
Already a diverse actor mixing Hollywood fare like X-Men: First Class, Wanted and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe with standard British films like Atonement, The Last King of Scotland and this year’s earlier Danny Boyle outing Trance, McAvoy is no stranger to losing himself in a role that requires a certain amount of gravitas. Here, though, he has sunk in to Bruce Robertson so much that he is not only unrecognisable, but almost as if he sacrificed his life to give the character a heartbeat. As a result, it seems to be McAvoy’s finest work as a truly reprehensible human being who could have very easily been two-dimensional but isn’t thanks to his true dedication to the craft.
The film also boasts other British thesps like Jamie Bell, Eddie Marsan, Imogen Poots, Shirley Hunderson and Jim Broadbent among its cast but as wild and out there as they may be, Filth was always going to be McAvoy’s time to truly shine. It took the combined imagination of Welsh and Baird to make the film of an unfilmable novel happen, and it now lies with McAvoy to make it truly come to life.
Filth is obviously not going to be for everyone, but whether or not you like Welsh’s previous line of work – Trainspotting included – it’s still going to be an intense piece of British cinema that will truly leap from the page in the best ways possible.
