Cemetery Junction

Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais, better known as the heads behind the successful TV shows The Office and Extras, have ventured to make their first feature-length film. It is called Cemetery Junction and naturally, one expects a comedy masterpiece. But although the film has its laughs, it is more of a coming-of-age story than pure comedy.

Set in 1973 in the eponymous Cemetery Junction, a death-end neighbourhood in South England, it tells the story of three teenage friends: Freddy (Christian Cooke), who just chucked in his dreary job at the factory to work in an insurance company; his best friend Bruce (Tom Hughes), a troublemaker and wannabe-Dean who still works in said factory, and “Snork” (Jack Doolan). Snork is the gang’s chubby little weirdo (every screen gang needs a fat kid after all). He is intellectually on par with Ralph Wiggum and he doesn’t actually have any plot relevance, but of course at bottom he is lovable, and at least he is good for some comic relief.

The trio spent their days playing pranks to local authorities and their nights in the local pubs, “boozing, fighting, shagging”, as Bruce puts it. In between, they dream of a better life. Freddy longs for a bourgeois idyll: a nice suburban home, a big car, and a cheerful (house)wife to look after the kids; Bruce just wants to run away from his apathetic father(Francis Magee); and Snork, well, he probably dreams of finally getting laid … or perhaps of his next meal.

At his new job, Freddy soon runs into his childhood friend Julie (Felicity Jones), his bosses’ attractive daughter. But unfortunately, she is already engaged to Mike (Mathew Goode), the greasy second-in-command to the boss, who has little appreciation for her desires to travel the world as a photographer for National Geographic. What happens next is entirely predictable, but because of the story’s heart-warming qualities, it is fun to watch nevertheless.

Lack of originality is indeed the films’ biggest problem. Merchant and Gervais makes wide use of established narrative clichés and stock characters, and most minor characters are as flat as the Netherlands. Well, some of them are at least hilarious. Freddy’s frustrated but witty grandmother (Anne Reid) and Gervais himself, who plays Freddy’s father, deserve a special mention here.

Furthermore, the film’s bright visual style seems strangely out of phase with its message at times. It makes the allegedly boring and depressing suburb look like neat place, and the allegedly dreary factory work like an interesting pastime. Hand in hand with this goes a romanticized view on the 1970’s, reminiscent of American TV advertising of that decade. In one scene, shiny happy hippies in bell-bottoms crowd the screen like Zombies crowd a George A. Romero flick. It is set in an absurd cliché of a 70’s night club in Frisco, complete with funky Afro-American soul singers, freaky acrobatic dancers and an enormous mirror ball.

The worst thing is that the film is so rife with admiration of the 70’s that it fails to address the problems of that time, although they are implicit often enough, especially in the depiction of the suburb’s mostly unhappy families. The rare moments where these issues suddenly become the centre of attention are arguably the strongest moments of the film, my favourite scene being Ralph Fiennes’ (who plays Freddy’s boss) depressing speech to a retiring employee on the occasion of the company’s annual ball. After 43 years of service in the same company, the man gets a fruit bowl and a handshake and may now cease to be a petty employee in order to become a petty retiree. Also, Emily Watson’s performance as the bosses’ neglected and ghost-like wife hits the same nerve and adds a bit of complexity to the otherwise rather shallow story.

The Conclusion: Cemetery Junction is by no means an outright bad film. The humour, the heart-warming story and the cool soundtrack make it a solid piece of entertainment. But the overuse of clichés and the lack of complexity leave it doomed to mediocrity. A film that you will enjoy thoroughly, but forget about quickly.