Cemetery Junction

After enjoying Felicity Jones so much in Like Crazy, I checked out her other major film performance, in 2010's Cemetery Junction, a British film that was not released stateside. Directed and written by mirth-makers Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, I was surprised to find that it is not a comedy, per se, but instead an earnest coming of age story set in 1973 in a depressing part of England.

Though Cemetery Junction is based in the British miserabilist style, it has a much more colorful and bouncier attitude. It focuses on three friends just page college age: Christian Cooke, who has just landed a job selling life insurance; Tom Hughes, a factory worker who fits the classic "angry young man" portrait; and Jack Doolan, as a half-wit social misfit who can't talk to girls and has adorned himself with the world's worst tattoo. Cooke serves as our protagonist, as he wants to better himself, and is inspired by his boss (Ralph Fiennes), who made it out of the very neighborhood he lives in.

There's been all sorts of movies like this, about young guys who long to shed the dust of home towns but can't leave, while one guy makes it out (he is invariably the stand-in for the movie's writer or director). I think mostly of I Vitteloni, but there are also films like American Graffiti and Diner. Cemetery Junction is no where in their league, unfortunately, as it too simple a tale, too black and white and not enough gray. The three characters each have arcs, but they're predictable and just a bit hackneyed, especially Hughes' relationship with his father, whom of course he misunderstands until a friendly policeman sets him straight, and Doolan's flirtation with a homely waitress.

The one spark the film has is, naturally, Gervais as Cooke's blue collar dad. His dialogue, especially banter with his aged mother, is very funny and gives the film a boost. Both are casually racist but have wicked senses of humor. Cooke doesn't seem genetically or spiritually capable of springing from Gervais' loins, but that's a sin that many movies commit these days.

As for Jones, she has a small role as Fiennes' daughter. She's engaged to Fiennes' supercilious underling, Matthew Goode, and realizes, of course, that she is on the road to turning into her mother (Emily Watson), who has had any joy of life snuffed out by the domineering Fiennes. In a well-done scene, Cooke goes to the annual awards banquet for the insurance company, and realizes that a job selling insurance, though it may come with an office and a nicer house, can be just as soul-crushing as a job in a machine shop.

The film also has period music, which is kind of slapped in, but makes for some good jokes. Hughes sneers at Cooke playing Vaughn Williams on his turntable, saying he shouldn't play music by poofs. Then, he adds, "How about putting on some Elton John?"