Flashbacks of a Fool

Joe Scott is a well known actor in Hollywood. He is fifty, lives in a mansion and nothing interests him; his days pass in drink, drugs and women. His career is nearly over as well. One day his mother telephones: his childhood friend Boots has died and the funeral is in England. Joe hangs up and begins remembering that day. There is a summer in a seaside town at the start of the seventies; two friends, a neighbour, and something that happened that summer. Baillie Walsh writes and directs. Daniel Craig plays Joe and Harry Eden his younger self. It is a British production. The structure runs on two times; the present day sections are short and most of the narrative takes place in the past. The matter it builds is guilt; the man has carried something for years and told nobody. Music of the period is inside the narrative and the long scene built around a Roxy Music track is its most cited part. The seaside town is reconstructed in detail and the England of the seventies comes forward visually. Its limit is the present day sections; the picture of Hollywood is formulaic and adds little. It drew limited interest on release. Who it is for: viewers who like British drama and period narratives. Who it is not for: the structure is unbalanced, some scenes explicit, and the ending can be guessed.