London To Brighton

3am in a London toilet, and an ugly hooker, apparently on the run with her very young teenage charge, locks them in, then, a bit later, goes outside to turn a trick and get some food. This grimy 'slice of life' follows their tale in flashback between London and Brighton as the youngster is forced into a seedy underworld. A gangster movie with child prostitution as its centrepiece, London to Brighton limps gamely along the road to perdition with a couple of strong scenes as saving graces.

Fairly early on I was paying more attention to the blood on the side of the woman's face, wondering how far she would have to travel before wiping it off, then realising it was the main clue (together with a hefty bruise) to signify whether we were in flashback or not. Other characters were equally unfinished. The gangsters looked as if they couldn't blow their way out of a paper bag - full of chip shop bravado but looking persistently out of their depth.

One scene is done more professionally than most - when the 11 year old girl makes her entrance to the house of the perv who has paid a lot of dosh for her, the white furnishings and Beethoven provide a striking contrast with the kitchen sink filth of most of the movie. A later scene involving a reasonably well executed if foreseeable twist, and some shovels, adds some emotional ballast and gives the film a sense of momentum. The 13yr old actress Georgia Groome (playing 11 year old Joanne) puts some effort into her role, whereas most of the characters could be friends of the director cajoled into 'acting'.

I asked the director after the Festival screening if he wanted to make any sort of social statement with the film, raise social awareness of a terrible issue; he said it would be nice if it did but he doubted it would last five days. There is nothing wrong with just wanting to make a thriller of course, and the film is not so bad that many people couldn't enjoy it, but when he added that it had taken four days to write and four weeks to shoot, I was tempted to add that it shows.