King Jack

Jack is fifteen, lives in a small town and is a target at school. A boy called Shane and his friends will not let him alone; beatings, humiliation, images passed around on phones. His mother is at work and his older brother takes no interest. That weekend his aunt is taken into hospital and his young cousin Ben comes to stay. Jack has to look after him and it is the last thing he wants. For two days they wander the town. Ben is frightened, Jack protects him, and at some point Jack's own trouble comes to a head. Felix Thompson wrote and directed; it is his first feature. Charlie Plummer plays Jack and Cory Nichols plays Ben. It is an American production. The film screened at the Tribeca Film Festival and won the audience award. Thompson took the someone to watch award at the Spirit Awards. The narrative is pressed into two days and never leaves the one town. The matter it treats is bullying; the film shows it not as a single event but as a condition. The narrative does not make Jack likeable; he does the same thing to others. The adults stand at the edge of the story and none of them steps in. The photography gives the summer and the country town in warm colours, against the hardness of the narrative. The ending brings no rescue, only another day. Its limit is scale; the plot is small, the film short, and there is no large dramatic turn. Who it is for: viewers who like coming of age drama and small scale independent film. Who it is not for: it is harsh, uneventful, and the ending rueful.