James McAvoy plays Bruce Robertson, an Edinburgh police detective with no redeeming features, in ‘Filth’. Picture: Supplied
Those in the know inform me that the film is not nearly as repulsive and hard-hitting as the book – and that’s really saying something.
Jon S Baird’s production is in-your-face cinema, a spunky adaptation of Irvine Welsh’s novel about the evil in a man’s soul and the grimy grimness of plummeting to the very bottom in life.
The dialogue is frighteningly frank and the performances from the large cast put your teeth on edge because they are relentless and real.
James McAvoy is superb, portraying a character that is a far cry from his Mr Tumnus in The Chronicles Of Narnia.
McAvoy is cast as Bruce Robertson, an Edinburgh police detective who is aiming for the top of his profession and will stop at nothing to get to this lofty position. This character has no redeeming features and preys on his fellow man with fiendish delight.
Abandoned by his wife and child, Robertson is a deeply flawed individual, a sociopath whose make-up is imbued with lashings of sexism, homophobia and racism. He is an alcoholic, uses hard drugs freely and smokes like a chimney. He destroys lives and it’s surprising that none of his bright superiors are able to detect this.
Loud and frenetic, the film swerves in and out of the real and imaginary worlds – and the valleys of Robertson’s lurid imagination are an uneasy place to search for fun.
James McAvoy plays Bruce Robertson, an Edinburgh police detective with no redeeming features, in
‘Filth’. Picture: Supplied
Writer-director Baird seems inspired by Trainspotting (also based on a Welsh book) and uses its rulebook to plot his course of action where this world is larger than life and where characters become almost caricatures. The film’s tone is well observed and designed to shock as it moves from moments of comedy to depths of darkness and depravity.
The cast is strong, featuring a host of top British talent, including Jim Broadbent as a deranged psychiatrist, Shirley Henderson as a sex-starved housewife and Joanne Frogett as a lonely widower. Best of all, there’s Eddie Marsan as a mousy businessman with thick glasses whose world falls apart after a wild trip with Robertson to the seedier parts of Hamburg.
