rob94 This film is great, it really is. Its an insight into how people like this live, it takes us through hell, then brings us back, we go on a journey with this life. The film has many ugly and beautiful moments. In the first half i thought Billy's heroin addiction was bad but by the end of the film after we've seen Ray and Valerie's issues with domestic violence and alcoholism, i thought Billy actually had an easy life in comparison, so it just shows how bad people's lives are. The scene where Ray Beats Valerie to a pulp is heartbreaking and disturbing and the aftermath of what he'd done to her was just hard to watch. I felt so sorry for Valerie having to live and raise children with Ray, the drunk lunatic. However even Ray shows at the end of the film that he's capable of being a sensible, rational, family man - which is what I found most interesting about the film, how after such violence and madness, how the family was able to fall back to normality at the end. This film is a realistic picture of a dysfunctional and flawed family. Drugs, alcoholism, violence, crime, profanity is normal to these people. As an audience it becomes normal to us too. The cinematography and music are just fantastic, beautifully put together. The acting, especially Ray Winstone and Kathy Burke is some of the best acting i have ever seen... I wanted to cry about three quarters through the film after it had sunk in just how bad some of the problems these people had, despite such hell the film seemed to continue at its chilled out and steady pace, like real life does. There is literally no way anyone can say this film isn't authentic and outstanding cinema, its just an absolute gem. It makes you laugh and cry, and feel sorry for these poor people who are less fortunate than yourself. So touching and beautiful yet so hellish and sad.

thebogofeternalstench Its very rare that I rate something 10 out of 10 but Nil By Mouth deserves it.What really really nags me is that this excellent film is poorly rated by Americans and Canadians etc that just don't get the lingo etc. Or the fact that Nil By Mouth is 'too grim' to applaud.I mean, had this been some less violent American movie by some A list actors then they would of gotten Oscar nominations and all sorts.The fact is this film is too real for most people. It has a lot of heart and reality to it. Its so gritty and raw and exploding with substance I cant believe how much Nil By Mouth is overlooked. AS far as I'm concerned this is the British Once Were Warriors, another great film but from New Zealand.I praise Gary Oldman for making such an honest, from the heart film. It is so rare nowadays to see something like Nil By Mouth.Kathy Burke is fantastic as the abused wife, and Ray Winstone equally as fantastic as the abuser and raging alcoholic. The supporting cast is fantastic as well.I really wish films like this existed today, sadly no one has the balls, vision or creativeness.Top film. If you think this film has no artistic merit then you really haven't got a clue. Its unique.

Rodrigo Amaro "Nil by Mouth" is a very striking and non predictable movie about absence of love or strange forms of love, agressiveness, addiction and other forms of self destruction and or the destruction of a family in this case. Here a poor family living in a working-class London district has too many problems to deal with that they don't see that they're living dangerously. Raymond (Ray Winstone) is a controlling man that starts to lose control of his acts after throws Billy (Charlie Creed-Miles), his wife's brother, out of his house after he steals some of his merchandise. Billy is drug addict and he returns to Raymond's house to steal some things and that makes Raymond even more angrier making of him a more violent person than he is even beating up his pregnant wife Val (Kathy Burke). In the middle of all this confusion there's Janet (Laila Morse) Billy's mother a very hard working mom who also has to deal with Billy's addiction, and the constant menaces of Raymond.The plot takes some time to mesh but when it does you try to expect something very predictable and that's not what you're gonna find here. In the beginning all we see is a amount of funny conversations à la John Cassavetes between Raymond and his friend Mark (Jamie Foreman, looks like a mix between Neil Jordan, Dr. Oz and John Michael Higgins) one completing each others story (they got some funny and strange stories, the best one is about Mark's heart attack). The introduction to all the characters is quite odd and a little bit difficult to follow but when the real deal starts it becomes more and more interesting. Actor Gary Oldman's first film as writer, director and producer is very impressive not only in his writing but also in his style as director. The screenplay is very surprising, alternating drama with a little bit of humor and towards the ending a very breathtaking thriller. Oldman included many things about his life in London. You may feel a little shocked with some of the things presented here. To me two scenes were very powerful in this sense: First when we see Janet watching his son Billy using drugs in front of her, and she says to him "Go to the back seat, I don't wanna see it!" but then she looks at him injecting drugs with a expression of curiosity. Second scene: is when Raymond freaks out, drunk and kicks his wife suspecting that she has an affair. This scene and the aftermath showing what happened to her face is very impressive, almost hard to look at it. Oldman's style as director is brilliant. He filmed the movie with a visual of a Brit movie of the 1980's with the language and editing with a frantic rhythm of the 1990's movies reminding "Trainspotting" in some moments. His direction of actors is incredible and you must give this guy a credit considering that almost the entire cast is unknown (except for Ray Winstone). He really must consider directing another movie because he's really great. It might seem that "Nil by Mouth" has too many clichés about dysfunctional and violent families and that sort of thing but I think the way Oldman presented the story was very original, a little different than the usual things. By the way the ending is one good example. It shocked me the way things worked between the characters and how their problems were solved out of the blue despite all the running tension throughout half of the movie. That surprise was good but it might seen non-plausible, non-realistic and very weird to some viewers. I loved the explanation of the title (the movie's title didn't get a translation here so it was a mystery to understand it but Ray Winstone explained it in one of the most memorable scenes of the movie). See this movie if you can and be patient with its imperfect moments and the long conversations in the beginning. 10/10

Framescourer I can't recommend this film as a date movie. Gary Oldman's semi-autobiographical account of life lived on a South East London estate is a violent, Beckettian account of one of Dante's circles of hell, frankly. At the centre of it is Ray Winstone, who has done this sort of character before but never as well. The film opens with him ordering drinks at a pub bar - that's all - and you are already gripped with a sense of the frustration, self-loathing and barbarism that he exhibits in many different ways throughout the course of the movie. It's an acting masterclass.Of course the stymied and dispossessed need a foil in a drama such as this and Winstone is matched by Kathy Burke as his long-suffering wife, who absorbs and ultimately rejects his unbearable behaviour. Charlie Creed-Miles does an able turn as the fuse-lighting druggie son Billy although he must have wondered sometimes exactly what he let himself in for. Gary Oldman directs close up on the actors, maximising the claustrophobia of their council flat squalor. 4/10