Pond Life

Stars: Esme Creed-Miles, Tom Varey, Angus Imrie, Gianluca Galluci, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Siobhan Finneran, Shaun Dooley, Julie Hesmondhaigh, Sally Lindsay

Director: Bill Buckhurst

There's plenty of pond but not much life in this much-delayed Britflick set in a South Yorkshire mining village in 1994. Central to the drama is Pogo (Creed-Miles, now a star in Amazon Prime's TV series Hanna), a mentally-challenged teenager not fully recovered from being raped by another character's brother (now in jail).

Off and on, she accompanies her friends Trevor (Varey) and Malcolm (Imrie) and two local lads to a nearby lake where they attempt to catch the giant carp that allegedly lurks there.

Meanwhile, the rapist's brother (Galluci) is attempting to get into the knickers of the village's teen temptress Sharon (Edgar-Jones), while the aforementioned kids, one of whom likes to wear his mother's lingerie, spy on them.

A plethora of actors from TV drama series, notable Finneran, Dooley and Hesmondhaigh, help fill in what there is of the local background, (chiefly the bingo hall). But the film is slackly directed at a desultory pace by Buckhurst, and I must confess to nodding off once or twice along the way.

David Quinlan

UK 2017. UK Distributor: Verve (Open Palm Films). Colour (unspecified).
97 minutes. Not widescreen. UK certificate: 12A.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 0, Violence/Horror 0, Drugs 1, Swearing 1.

Review date: 21 Apr 2019