Sightseers

A black comedy set in England. Tina lives with her mother. The woman will not let her go, blames her constantly and does not want her leaving the house. She meets Chris. He proposes a holiday: they will take a caravan to the north of England, to museums and country parks. They set off. The first stops are ordinary. A pencil museum, a tram museum, stone circles and campsites. Then something happens. At a campsite someone drops litter, Chris reacts, and it ends like an accident. Then it happens again, and this one is no accident. From there the film is about a relationship developing. Tina is startled at first, then joins in, and after a while makes her own decisions. They get used to each other as a couple and both lose the measure of it. What the narrative is interested in is not violence but manners: the killings are about litter, rudeness or crowding; the film uses English everyday politeness as a source of conflict. The image looks like a holiday film: green hills, rain, stops for tea, and now and then a body. Alice Lowe plays Tina and Steve Oram plays Chris; the screenplay is theirs and the characters come from their own stage work. Ben Wheatley directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes British black humour and films with an odd tone. Who it is not for: anyone troubled by violence being found funny; the film does that constantly.