Brighton Line...a review.

One hardly knows what to say about ‘Brighton Line’. But one will have a go anyway. Somebody has to. Directed from prison by Roman Polanski it’s a rambling story centered on Simon and Arthur who probably both have surnames. They were at Grammar School together, read Henry Miller simultaneously on Brighton beach and hitchhiked to India together trying to be beatniks. They were ahead of their time in a way. The first in what would become a steady stream of young Westerners going East. There is a touching scene where Arthur watches a cargo ship leaving for Penang from the window of the British Consul’s office in Madras (Chennai).

Back in England, after the trip to India obviously, Simon and Arthur begin to go their separate ways. Arthur marries Alice mainly because she is pregnant and has just inherited a tobacco and newsagent shop in a small town which Arthur helps her run. The shop not the town. Simon gets into rock writing and goes on to become a well-known TV personality. Alice dies and Arthur disappears in Northern Thailand not that anybody misses him much.

Mixing cast and characters could make for a confusing film one would think but in the skillful hands of convicted rapist Polanski the nuances are perfectly captured without being laid on with a trowel. Nobody is sure who actually wrote the screenplay but it’s narrated by somebody called Dick Headley a retired property developer living on a yacht in the Virgin Islands with 4 or 5 Thai girls. Me? I just write movie reviews. It’s a living.

Having Sir Ian McKellar play the young Arthur was a stroke of genius by someone. He even finds an element of humour in Arthur’s endless introspection, self-hatred and escapist tendencies. There is a slightly unconvincing performance by George Clooney as Chuck. Clooney looks right but he seems a little too smug somehow. Michael Sheen is in fine form however, part David Frost, part Brian Clough, part Tony Blair. Sheen is perfect for the role of Simon. Olivia Williams is wonderful as the mysterious Samantha and Dick Headley plays himself (apparently both Ray Winstone and Alfred Molina were unavailable).

The generic Chelsea Mews and Portobello Road locations will be familiar to most Londoners while the more exotic scenes were filmed in Marbella and at ‘Brown Sugar’ the Flashman family plantation on Barbados. Highlights include Simon interviewing William Burroughs in Fortnum and Mason’s tearoom and some grainy footage of an impromptu Hawkwind concert somewhere. All Saints Hall, Notting Hill circa 1969 most likely. Arthur’s musings get a little tedious but the ante is upped considerably after Dick gets into a fight with Bob Dylan on a Caribbean beach and Simon hosts the Brit Awards. There is plenty of light-hearted banter along the way, Butch and Sundance kind of stuff. Simon and Arthur meet again in Bangkok. Throw in a few cameo appearances by well-known cultural figures and you have a potted history of the last 50 years.

About halfway through some viewers may be gently reminded of Gertrude Stein’s facetious remark about Oakland, Calif. to wit ‘There is no there there.’ but since the whole thing was adapted from an unpublished novel at least nobody will be able to say the book was better.