There are hints of a good film here, but ultimately it's disappointing and comes nowhere close to the previous efforts of Shane Meadows.Set in London, the film tells the story of an unlikely friendship between two youngsters who are experiencing the city for the first time. Tomo is from the Midlands and his past is unclear, however we can be fairly certain that he's running away from his previous life and has nothing to go back to. Marek is a Polish immigrant, who is living in a flat with his Father.The film lacks any real direction. The acting from the boy who plays Marek is poor at best, and even Thomas Turgoose, who was excellent in This Is England really struggles. In fact the most interesting scenes are those with Marek's Dad. We get a real sense of the love he has for his son, but also his pain at having left his former life behind and bringing up a child on his own.The film is very short, but there are still some scenes which could have been cut shorter or omitted altogether. The wheelchair scene with the French waitress was kind of cute at first, but Meadows really lays it on thick with slow motion scenes of the three characters looking around them at the high rise flats with the predictable indie tune in the background. It all seems rather pointless. The film is not without it's merits. I liked the last sequence, and having the trip to Paris in colour was a nice touch (the rest of the film is in black and white). I liked the contrast of this scene to the rest of the film, but of course I think we can all come to the conclusion that the Paris scene never really happened and is just happening in the imaginations of the two young boys, hence why it is in colour as opposed to the rest of the film.Altogether, not a great film and not one I'll be rushing to re-watch. If you've seen any of Shane Meadows other work, maybe check Somers Town out just to see how it stacks up, but I think you'll be left disappointed.

Shane Meadows is an under-acknowledged genius, and in this short film about the friendship between two boys, lippy Tomo and drippy Marek, all of his strengths are on view (in spite of its brevity): the ability to coach brilliant performances out of largely unproven casts, hilarious yet real dialogue, simple but atmospheric cinematography and an excellent soundtrack provided by his long-term friend and collaborator Gavin Clark. It's true, that not a lot happens, but it's an utterly moving paean to the virtues of simple companionship in a lonely world. The setting near Kings Cross reminded me of Mike Leigh's 'High Hopes', another film whose strength is its affection for its characters; 'Somers Town' is a slighter film, but a perfectly realised one.

Anais Nin said, "Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born." A new world is indeed born for two lonely teenagers in Shane Meadows' Somers Town, a spirited 70-minute exploration of the bonds that can arise out of mutual need. Originally intended as a 20-minute promo by railway line Eurostar to publicize their high-speed London to Paris train, the film contains references to high-speed trains but is in no sense an advertisement for anything except good film-making. Written by frequent Meadows collaborator Paul Fraser and shot in high contrast black and white, the film stars Thomas Turgoose, the twelve-year-old Skinhead in This is England as Tomo, a runaway orphan from Nottingham.Tomo comes to London to find something better in life but is beaten and robbed of his money and belongings on his first night away from home. He soon meets Marek (Piotr Jagiello), an introverted Polish teen who lives with his father in one of the flats in Somers Town, a working class area in Northern London. Somers Town is named after the Somers family who owned the land and can boast of such former residents as Charles Dickens, Arthur Rimbaud, and Paul Verlaine. Marek warily agrees to let Tomo stay with him but they are both fearful of being discovered by Marek's father (Ireneusz Czop), a Polish immigrant, who is often known to come home drunk. Shot in and around Phoenix Court, a low rise council property in Purchese Street, their friendship grows as they are put to work by a scheming neighbor Graham (Perry Benson) stacking and sanding lawn chairs.Soon they are pulling off dicey capers, and competing for the affection of Maria (Elisa Lasowski), a lovely French waitress in a local café. One of the film's high points is when the two boys find an abandoned wheelchair and give Maria a ride home, a gesture that prompts her to plant a kiss on each boy's cheek, telling them that she loves them equally. Tomo likes to talk tough but his vulnerability shows through his poses and we can see that underneath there is a good person struggling to emerge. Marek is a photographer who has a gentleness about him and the two personalities seem to complement each other. Supported by an outstanding acoustic soundtrack of songs by Gavin Clarke and Ted Barnes, Meadows captures the grittiness of blue-collar existence but balances it with a light touch that makes the film a thorough delight.One of the funniest sequences is when the two steal a bag of clothes from the Laundromat that turn out to be mostly women's garments which Tomo is forced to wear simply because he doesn't have anything else. When Maria decides to return home to Paris without saying goodbye, the boys plan a train trip to find her and, in a color montage that may be real or imagined, the film explodes into unexpected lyricism. Meadows latest film may not have the clout of Dead Man's Shoes (2004) or This is England (2006) but to call it insubstantial just because it is short is to do it a grave injustice. Somers Town is so natural and the character's growing pains so poignant that you will have a hard time ever getting it out of your head.

Being from Nottingham myself, I sort of feel duty-bound to watch Shane Meadows' films. Usually they don't disappoint. Usually.The reason I see this film as an attempt at comedy is that I can't really see what else it could be. I can't see any kind of message contained in this film, and the premise of the film frankly borders on the preposterous. Too little about the protagonist's background is divulged for the audience to take him seriously. He is essentially a homeless child on the loose in London, though a seemingly compassionate women he meets with on a train and then later in a café feels no need to report this fact to anyone. What drives the film then is the comic spectacle of the unlikely relationship that develops between young Tomo and a Polish immigrant he meets. Sure, this has its moments, but I don't really think that comedy is Meadows' forte.The black and white photography is equally irritating. Meadows could have saved himself bother by just popping up at the start of the film and announcing "this is more 'indie' than This is England, you know...". Once he'd got that off his chest then maybe we could have enjoyed the film in colour...I'm looking for positives here, I really am, but this film is really lacking. It lacks plausibility. It lacks originality (it's relatively similar to This is England). And it lacks run-time: 70 minutes and no discernible 'ending' - you may well feel like heading back to the ticket booth and asking for a refund afterwards.Not an unmitigated disaster, but watch Shane's other films first.