★★★★★
Clio Barnard’s I See Buildings Fall Like Lightning is one of the best portrayals of young adulthood since St. Elmo’s Fire. A brilliant and heartfelt look at modern life through a group of close-knit friends who all have different backgrounds and are at different stages in life, despite being the same age.
Penned by Enda Walsh, based on the novel by Keiran Goddard, the film follows five childhood friends who face adult struggles, from relationship strains over past secrets, destructive partying, fatherhood, business dreams, and life-altering wealth to the burden of never being able to escape the fact that they were born into poverty.
While I haven’t read the book, I do plan on it since learning of the film’s adaptation. Walsh crafts a brilliant script that captures the lives of the five friends with restraint, yet without borders.
With so many main characters, so to speak, trying to adapt a novel into a film and give each character the proper time, dedication, and arc they deserve is often challenging, and noticeably so.
Finding the right balance on the pages to fully create each character in their own right, while being forced to maintain a page count, often hinders an adaptation’s ability to do right by every character.
Every character is fully fleshed out, balanced, and intertwined. Every moment comes back to the centerpiece of these five friends, even when the side quests seem irrelevant at the moment.
“Walsh’s adaptation is one of the best of the year.”
One of the only things more impactful than Walsh’s script is Clio Barnard’s direction.
Barnard has this undeniable, crisp, and clear vision of the film and the story she wants to tell, and finds a new and creative way to bring that story to life. Utilizing everything from the performances, script, score, and cinematography to the editing, all of which flourish under her singular vision.
Simon Tindall’s cinematography is phenomenal. Every shot feels crisp and intentional. Tindall’s use of the camera to help create and craft the tone and pacing of the film is outstanding.
The club scene at the beginning of the film is so masterfully executed. The use of color, paired with the editing from Maya Maffioli, creates this astonishing blend that captures the essence of the friendship and bond between them.
There are multiple party scenes and sequences in which they are drinking, doing drugs, and partying, and every single one is shot in such a way that it creates this sense of connection rather than distraction and aimless drug and alcohol use.
Harry Escott’s score also deserves credit, for it elevates the film at every turn. It never masks the film’s tone or visual presentation, yet always elevates it. It knows when to go bolder and when to take a step back.
The difference between fun partying and problematic drinking is shown not only through actions but through presentation, which is another brilliant decision from Clio Barnard to establish tone.
This inherently showcases the difference between the two, what it means, and how quickly those lines can get crossed, while demonstrating how they are obviously different on a subtextual level, even if, on the outside, they seem the same.
There is even this really deep, blunt look at the current world we live in and how universally screwed everything currently is, which contributes to many of the issues the different friends face in different capacities.
“From Joe Cole to Lola Petticrew, there is not a weak performance in the film. In fact, I would say this has one of the best ensembles of the year.”
Daryl McCormack crafts a bittersweet performance that captures the highs and lows of life while masking the weight of the world that fathers and husbands often bear. The mask of success and loathing of failure come off perfectly balanced, capturing the uncanny pressures of not just life, but everything around it.
Lola Petticrew breathes life into Shiv with this charisma that is energetic and lively, stealing every scene while also being able to showcase her versatility with these deeply heartfelt moments that create an entirely different side to her character.
“A must-see!”
Clio Barnard creates a film in which, while not everyone can relate to the characters verbatim through their actions or life choices, what I think everyone can relate to and resonate with is the bond, friendship, and hardship these characters go through together. Yearning for or reminiscing about those bonds that they themselves share.
How Barnard captures the best times, worst times, and life in general in the most honest and forthcoming way is, without question, some of the best directing I’ve seen this year, making this easily one of my favorite films of the year.
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