Gritty yet incongruously gorgeous – and glacier-paced – this ambitious first feature from Midlands miserablist Duane Hopkins proves that crikey,
the British can do Bruno Dumont-style poetic realism after all.
It’s a melancholy but affecting skein of linked stories, in which Cotswold youths numb their pain with heroin, schoolkids trash a teen romance and OAPs battle for their marriage.
Due to the variable talents of the cast, Better Things can’t always support its artistic innovations. But Hopkins’ observational style lends this
abstract movie a potent poignancy.
Kate Stables
