Maybe We Ain't That Young Anymore

Cemetery Junction (2010)

The first film from writers/directors Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais, "Cemetery Junction" has been eagerly anticipated by me for a few years.

Set in England in the 1970's it's a slightly different type of "coming of age" film in which the characters are in their early to mid 20's and not teenagers. Drinking, getting into fights and still living in their home town, they suddenly realize that they're not young anymore and it's time to do something with their lives.

For Merchant/Gervais it's a slight departure in that it's not a straight forward comedy but focuses rather on drama, romance and relationships. It's also, as was already mentioned, not a typical coming of age film as it borrows from "Rebel Without a Cause", "The Apartment" or possibly "Swingers" more so than, say, "The Breakfast Club" but also with some "Saturday Night Fever" thrown in (or so I'm told). It's also a departure as neither Ricky or Steve plays one of the main characters though Ricky has a bit part, Steve has a small cameo and there is even a (brief) appearance by Karl Pilkington.

It's quite a good movie and although it took a while to get into, by the end I was quite into the characters and story. The soundtrack is a big factor - the climax of the movie feature's Led Zeppelin's "The Rain Song" played over the film in its entirety. Ralph Fiennes is quite good as usual and Emma Watson ("Punch-Drunk Love", "Equilibrium", "Synecdoche, New York") gives another understated but excellent performance.

Although it's better than 99% of everything that comes out of Hollywood I can sort of see why it wasn't released in the US and I've had to wait for this long for it to come out on DVD. The thick British accents get to be quite hard to understand at times and I, yes even I, was reduced to turning on the closed captioning. Still, it's a non-issue if you're used to reading subtitles on the occasional foreign film.

It's a little bit unfair to how good the movie is and how much work and effort it took to make but the movie itself is a little overshadowed by the Director's Commentary which is one of the funniest DVD commentaries I've ever heard. As a Gervais/Merchant fan it's probably to be expected but they are hilarious in their ridiculous banter. The only funnier commentary that comes to mind is the "This Is Spinal Tap" commentary where the band all discuss the movie in-character but that's a high standard to reach.

All in all, a 9 out of 5.