Analyse af filmen 'This is England'

February 18, 2010 - This is England is a drama film written and directed by Shane Meadows. The story is about a young group of non-racist skinheads in England in 1983. The film illustrates the skinhead subculture around this time period, but also about how a young boy with no father-figure in his life, can be dragged into a life, no little boy should ever experience.

The movie starts with12-years old Shaun (Thomas Turgoose) getting in a fight at school because somebody made a joke about his father, who died in the Falklands War. On his way home in a cloudy mood he meets a group of non-racist skinheads sitting in a small tunnel. The group is led by a guy called Woody (Joe Gilgun), who feels sympathy with Shaun and want him to join the group. Shaun joins the group but is bullied a bit at first, but is finally accepted by the group and find kind of a big brother in Woody. It is also in the group he develops a relationship to a girl called Smell or Michelle (Rosamund Hanson), an older girl who dresses kind of punky.

Things are going great for Shaun and the group because he finally has something to do after school instead of just going home. But everything changes when Combo (Stephen Graham), an older skinhead who returns after serving prison time. Combo is a nationalist, he assembles the group and expresses his views and meanings to the group. This enforces his leadership over the skinheads and this leads the group to split in two. Shaun and some others from the group stay in Combos racist instead of leaving with the non-racist group led by Woody. Combo sees something of himself in the troubled Shaun from when he was a young boy himself, he identifies himself with Shaun and Shaun finds something of a father-figure in Combo. To please his new mentor and honor his father Shaun goes to a white nationalist meeting, after this meeting Shaun is engaged in several racist acts, one of them is against the shopkeeper from the start of the movie.