tlavideo.com

Review

Hallam Foe (Jamie Bell, Billy Elliot) is a loner and a dreamer with voyeuristic tendencies and an apparent Oedipus complex. Unable to deal with his stepmother, who he believes murdered his mother, he runs away to Glasgow. Following a fetching woman — who bears a striking resemblance to his mother — to the downtown hotel where she works, he talks his way into a job as a dishwasher. With nowhere to go, he squats in the hotel’s clocktower, which allows him a bird's-eye view of the city and the apartment belonging to his object of affection. Improbably, a round of drinks on his birthday lands him a shot with the girl of his dreams, but that's just the beginning of a film whose trajectory is completely unpredictable. Hallam Foe is one of the most memorable and disarmingly likable troubled outsiders to hit screens in some time, and Jamie Bell delivers a tour de force performance. Hallam's demons are close to the surface, and some of his behavior is indefensible, but somehow it's always clear that he is harmless and as sympathy-worthy as a wounded animal. The film's stormy exuberance and youthful sense of desperation is irresistible, but an infectious humor keeps the movie light.

 -- Jesse Dubus