BURN AFTER READING : Gervais & Merchant’s ‘Cemetery Junction’ [5/10]

Though its title suggests a funky teen horror movie, Cemetery Junction is a genial but ultimately lukewarm tale of three lads in their early twenties, stuck in a dead-end English backwater during the dog days of 1973, and day-dreaming of escape. Given this premise, it’s a little ironic that the film itself – set in a leafy, cosy corner of Berkshire commuter-town Reading* – should be let down by a lack of ambition.
Making a belated transition to film after a string of notable small-screen comedy successes (The Office, Extras), writer-director-producers Gervais and Merchant are, not unexpectedly, most comfortable with the more humorous aspects of their bittersweet story (even if proceedings occasionally veer towards the sitcom-broad at times). The more serious and/or emotional stuff, however, is two-dimensional and fatally predictable: given the opening scenes, it’s all too easy to work out exactly what’s going to happen to the four main characters, and characterisation in general is disappointingly basic (the “bad guys”, namely Ralph Fiennes and Matthew Goode as the main character’s boss and colleague, are little more than oleaginous, lizardly, hissable pod-people.)
On the plus side, Christian Cooke is a real find as good-looking, easy-going life-insurance salesman Freddie, whose dawning dissatisfaction with suburban life – and reconnection with a childhood flame Julie (Felicity Jones, appealing under the curves of her 70s “flicked”, proto-Farrah-Fawcett hairstyle) forms the main focus and emotional centre of the narrative. As Freddie’s best pals, Tom Hughes is all vampiric teeth and Mick Jagger-ish, pre-punk attitude as the (tiresomely) hothead Bruce – an obnoxious, self-regarding small-town rebel without much of a cause – while Jack Doolan milks a string of fairly easy laughs as the dopey/randy ‘Snork’. Gervais himself pops up as Freddie’s boorish factory-worker dad, gleefully mouthing the era’s thick-eared racial, xenophobic and sexual prejudices, and scene-stealer in chief is Emily Watson, making the most of her limited appearances as Fiennes’ taken-for-granted housewife spouse.
Period detail is reasonably solid, if a little shaky in spots – as usual, maximum care has been taken with regard to hair and clothing, but some of the dialogue is distractingly anachronistic (did anyone in Reading actually use the term “downer” until the 1990s?). More imaginative  attention has been paid to the soundtrack, which makes judicious use of contemporary pop, rock and soul tunes with a couple of more adventurous touches deftly applied here and there. Just a shame that overall Cemetery Junction should, despite Remi Adefarasin’s lustrously burnished (if somewhat heavily backlit/’fogged’) cinematography, should be generally so content to stick to tried-and-tested conventions of recent British nostalgic comedy-drama.

Neil Young
14th/15th April, 2010

CEMETERY JUNCTION : [5/10]
UK 2010 : Ricky GERVAIS & Stephen MERCHANT : 95m (BBFC) : {14/28}
seen 14th April 2010 at Odeon cinema, Leicester (£7.70)

*Reading viewers comment on the film, from Reading Post
Belinda Hawkins, 34, Southcote: “It’s brilliant. It was not what we were expecting from Ricky Gervais, it was quite serious really. It was good to have the references to Reading, it really makes you smile.”
Helen Viney, 29, Welford Road, Woodley: “It is really good. Nothing to do with Reading but it was very heart warming and very emotional.”
Pam Brown, 56, Woodley: “The English actors were very good, it was realistic. It reminded me of my youth. I can imagine it is nothing like Reading was then but it was very nice.”
Neil Watkins, 40, Mapledurham: “I enjoyed it. There’s some very good black humour in it, you could tell it was written by Ricky Gervais. Anyone who expected to see Reading in the 70s will be disappointed, it looked more like a town in South Oxfordshire. It looked far more glamorous than Cemetery Junction.”
Stacey Gould, 17, Caversham: “I thought it was not going to be as good as it was. It was good when they mentioned Reading Football Club but where it is located I did not think was much like Reading.”
Matthew Foakes, 18, Cockney Hill, Tilehurst: “It was good. I didn’t think it was noticeably Reading though they talked about Whitley. I really enjoyed it, it’s very funny, very Ricky Gervais.”
Jean Gould, 81, Caversham Heights: “We enjoyed it very much. It was very true to life, especially the dance hall. I used to go to The Majestic dance hall, I remember it very well. It was a good film. I thought it was very true to how things are, it takes me back.”