JohnnyWeissmuller The Selfish Giant takes its name from the Oscar Wilde story, although it bears no relation, being an original story from director Cleo Barnard. Here, centering around the lives of two young Yorkshire boys who are without aspiration, education or a sound family unit. The two young stars of the film, Connor Chapman and Shaun Thomas, play Arbor and Swifty, best friends who spend their days skipping school and getting into further mischief in the streets and fields surrounding the run-down estate in which they live. Arbor, with his drug-addict brother and a mother who can't control them, and Swifty, with his numerous siblings and volatile parents who are so destitute they can't afford electricity to their house or a meal greater than beans and dry bread. By chance, the boys encounter two men stealing copper cable from the railway and, as the men hide from track engineers, the boys take the chance to steal the stolen cable and sell it to local scrap dealer, Kitten, played by Sean Gilder. The boys aspirations to earn some money has them working for Kitten, who abuses their naivety and trust as he pushes them into hard labour with little reward. Especially when Kitten sees Swifty's affinity with horses and an opportunity to win money trap racing on the motorway nearby. Not too far removed from Ken Loach's seminal Kes, The Selfish Giant is kitchen sink cinema with the added realism of people and place, Chapman and Thomas being non- professionals who reside in the area where the film is set, whilst the script and direction are uniformly excellent in a film that is devastatingly powerful and intensely moving.

Leofwine_draca One of the commentators has hit the nail on the head when they called this movie depressing. It's ostensibly based on an Oscar Wilde story, although given that the source material is a fairy tale for children, the similarities are so few that you can't really work out the connection.Instead this is a working class tale of petty crime and even pettier characters. The main characters are a couple of tearaway kids who decide to make a living by stealing scrap metal and selling it to the local dealer. The problem with this film is that the entire cast is unsympathetic, and the dialogue is poorly written, substituting expletives for insight.I don't mind low budget films with depressing backdrops - I really enjoyed the Irish tragi-comedy ADAM & PAUL, for example - but this really takes the biscuit, especially when you have no real reason to watch. And that ending is so heavily signposted throughout that it doesn't come as a surprise at all.

Adam Peters (79%) A brilliant, honest look into modern day British life for children living at the very bottom step of society. If Ken Loach is to retire (don't hold your breath) then Barnard is worthy to continue what he has perfected, as this is "Raining stones" through the eyes of children. The performances from the two main stars is uniquely wonderful, and they are real performances, not to be confused with simply playing themselves, as I don't buy that for a second. This comes highly recommended for anyone who craves some grim reality in their cinema, with plenty of bite, attention to detail, and a heart bursting, non-sugar coated tale to tell. A future British low-budget classic in waiting.

Raven-1969 If being hopelessly poor, having the police constantly at the door, being expelled from school, or experiencing other troubles, weigh on the life of little Arbor, he does not show it. Despite extremely limited resources, Arbor is relentless in his quest to rise above his mean surroundings. In a fable that seems to belong to another era or place, Arbor scrounges for scrap metal and competes with unscrupulous adults for limited and often illicit resources. Arbor is charming and surprisingly capable of navigating in this adult underworld, yet when he pulls his more sensitive friend down with him, things may unravel beyond control. Successful in their debut at Cannes, Director Barnard and her scrappy crew provide a moving and stark portrait of society adept at stripping people of emotion and connection to others, animals, and the larger world. Turn the language captioning on, for even though the film is in English, it is not an English that Americans readily understand.