A Bit of Light

joshrowley2.0

Middling.

Kirstiekins4.0

I don’t often make the best decisions when I’m in one of my weird little depression spirals, but buying tickets to this movie premier was definitely the exception!I was sad in bed when I saw the trailer for a film (this film) that looked like it would punch me right in the feels. I needed to see it right away, so bought tickets to the premier and then spent three weeks annoyed that I had to wait… haha!And punch me in the feels it did! I laughed, I (nearly) cried, and I left the cinema wishing I could go back and watch it for the first time all over again. The father-daughter relationship between Paquin and Winstone was incredibly moving, second only to the powerful friendship and frequent honesty between Paquin and her new 14 year old friend.I am very much in awe of how the general cinematography was able to highlight particular themes and questions. They are very much the type of scenes I envision when I think about translating scenes from my own writing on to film. Everything from the bright pink bedroom, to Alan and Ella watching Pointless, and small wardrobe decisions like the blue tracksuit top that looks exactly like one my grandad used to have! I’ve never been through anything remotely similar to this, but everything just felt so relatable. A truly thoughtful and heartfelt piece of cinema. It’s a fantastic little movie! Side note, where do I sign up to have Anna Paquin take me to Scarborough for my birthday?

Mark Cunliffe 🇵🇸3.5

I'm slightly biased because I sort of know Rebecca Callard, the writer of this, a little bit, but I really enjoyed it. An adaptation of her own award winning play, the first thing that strikes you about A Bit of Light is that it is very well written. More, that it's specifically written by an actor, which means there's an innate understanding here that dialogue has to flow naturally and be delivered with ease by performers. As such, nothing feels eggy here, and the screenplay gets the best from a cast that includes Anna Paquin as Callard's damaged heroine, Ella, Ray Winstone as her sympathetic father Alan and, in a remarkable debut performance, Luca Hogan, as enigmatic teenager Neil.Directed by Stephen Moyer, Paquin's husband and Callard's former co-star in 90s TV series The Grand, much of your appreciation of A Bit of Light will stand or fall on the central relationship between Ella and Neil. At the start of the film, 40 year old Ella is completely broken. Her alcoholism has meant that she has given up custody of her two young daughters to her ex husband Joe (Youssef Kerkour) and his new partner, Bethan (Pippa Bennett-Warner), and is now living back with her father in her childhood bedroom. Enter, the curious, wise-beyond-his-years Neil, a 13 year old loner whose roots are vague and unsatisfying when under scrutiny and who doesn't appear to feel the cold. Now, some reviews seem to signify that the friendship between a grown woman and a teenage boy is just one they cannot invest in, citing it as taboo or creepy. Others appreciate the suggestion of the magical social realism at play here, only to dismiss it as too ambiguous; complaining that the film ought to be clearer and not try to have a foot in both camps. Even those who do seem open to the notion of what Neil represents, criticise it as an obvious dramatic device. It seems A Bit of Light just can't win.Yet, for me, Neil is a most fascinating and stimulating character that works in perfect symbiosis with Ella, and I think most reviews are missing the point. It isn't just that Neil helps Ella fulfill her character journey by getting her from rock bottom and on to a better place as the credits roll, it's that he arguably represents everything that Ella hopes for her own children. At the start of the film, Ella is in a rut of her own devising. She hates and blames herself for what has happened, and she doesn't try to turn a corner herself because she doesn't believe that she deserves redemption. Forget about whether Neil is real or imagined, alive or dead. Consider him from Ella's point of view. He sees her for the person in pain, self-inflicted turmoil, that she truly is, and he accepts her. It is that acceptance that puts her on the path towards the light, perhaps because it is the acceptance that she hopes her daughters will show her when they are a little older, closer to Neil's age, in fact. She needs to believe that she can be forgiven for failing them, for not keeping the family together, in order to forgive herself. It's the hope that they can, as shown by Neil, that is "a bit of light"; a sign to turn that corner. So, if you really want to know what Neil is, he is, for me at least, the physical manifestation of the acceptance and forgiveness that Ella needs in order to move on.A film written by an actor and directed by an actor will always understand what their cast requires and will get the best from them. Despite her native accent occasionally shining through, Paquin is a compelling lead that easily earns our sympathy, whilst Winstone delights in a far softer, cosier role than normal, and then there's Hogan. Just as Neil appears to possess a spirit beyond his years, so too does Hogan showcase abilities beyond both his age and experience. It's a very assured and impressive debut.Curiously for a British movie, A Bit of Light hasn't, as yet, secured a release here in the UK and is only available in the US. It's a real shame to think that small, heartfelt movies such as this can just disappear into the ether. Another criticism in some reviews that may explain this fate is that it simply isn't cinematic, a complaint that may be directed at Moyer's direction or at its theatrical origins. I don't necessarily hold with that based on those grounds, but I do think that something like this may have had a better shot thirty years ago with Film Four or even via television, such as Screen One or Screen Two.