Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5062 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-04-30
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 85 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
2006 proved to be an impressive year for British cinema, but London To Brighton, in spite of being one of the most deserving of acclaim, slipped off most people’s radar.

A drama set around London’s underworld, and attempts to escape it, London To Brighton tells the story of a twelve year old runaway girl, Joanne, and Kelly, a prostitute. Their attempts to get out of London aren’t straightforward, not least because of who’s on their tail, and the result is a compelling, tightly-written movie, and as good as anything Britain produced for the big screen in 2006.

London To Brighton is a mixture of thriller and drama, very gritty, not always easy to watch, and resolute in pulling its many punches. Written and directed with care by Paul Andrew Williams, perhaps his wisest move was casting the simply superb Lorraine Stanley as Kelly, and her compelling performance lends an added magnetism to an already-taut piece of cinema.

In many ways working as well on DVD as it did on the big screen, London To Brighton is a challenging, bold and strong film. It’s not perhaps the perfect tonic for a quiet night in, but it’s likely to stay in your head for a good deal longer than another homogenous romcom. --Jon Foster

Synopsis
LONDON TO BRIGHTON is a gritty and unflinching drama about the lowlifes and criminals that inhabit London’s seedy underworld. The film opens on a rundown public toilet somewhere in South London, where a prostitute tries to console a visibly distraught 11-year old girl. As the story unfolds in flashback, we learn more about these characters, their wounds, and how they came to be in their current predicaments. Kelly (Lorraine Stanley) is a beat-up prostitute trying to escape her controlling pimp. While her motives for helping Joanne (Georgia Groome) seem genuine at first, things soon turn ugly when an encounter with a male client leads to murder. Cut to the present day and Kelly and Joanne are on the run; from the nefarious thugs out to do them harm, and from their own demons. Boarding a train from London to Brighton seems like their only hope, but ends up being a journey of self-discovery as the mother-daughter-like bond between them grows ever stronger. Winner of Best UK Feature at Raindance, LONDON TO BRIGHTON has earned comparisons to Mike Leigh's similarly-themed NAKED and Gary Oldman’s NIL BY MOUTH. Director Paul Andrew Williams, in his feature film debut, has created a brutally realistic urban thriller, a carefully measured character study, and a razor-sharp, if unpalatable, social commentary that will stay with you long after the closing credits roll.

Customer Reviews

Erm... so what??
I'm left scratching my head over the ridiculous amounts of praise this really rather unexceptional film has garnered from critics and reviewers here on Amazon.
Sure, the performances are mostly pretty good - Johnny Harris especially commanding the screen whenever he is on it - but the story is mostly rather dull and lacking in any kind of depth or meaning beyond the obvious and banal. And there are virtually no memorable images or dialogue that are likely to stay with you for any length of time afterwards. If you're looking for a brutal, disturbing, genuinely shocking British revenge tragedy with real, visceral power and plenty of artistry in its construction and execution, I'd suggest Shane Meadows' far superior Dead Man's Shoes.
If you're looking for an insight into the world of London's prostitutes, I'd suggest the flawed, ultimately unsatisfying but still interesting Eastern Promises by David Cronenberg.
London to Brighton is incredibly pedestrian in comparison to those films.

Brilliant but grim
This film pulls you straight into its world, which is the grim and brutal.
The pace is pretty relentless, the two girls appear in a toilet one with a black eye and both in trouble and decide to escape once Joanne has earned enough for their fare prostituting herself.
To say much more would be to give away the plot, but this is the kind of film that keeps you on the edge of your seat, and actually gets inside your head for the next few days. The only problem is that the world of pimps, prostitutes, clients and gangsters isn't really the kind of place you want to be caught up in!
The performances are all there, there isn't a weak performance in the whole film and everyone is believable if pretty weak willed or just plain nasty.
The only slight problem is the ending is possibly slightly predictable and a bit unlikely, it's well worth a look but it's not an easy film to watch.

One of the best Brit-Flicks of the 21st century
CONTAINS SPOILERS

It's the early hours of the morning and a 12 year old girl called Joanne played by an amazing Georgia Groome and a jaded prostitute Kelly, an understated Loraine Stanley are huddling together in a London toilet, Kelly's face look like it has been put through a compactor and Joanne's clothes are ripped and torn. Told in flash backs mainly from the points of view of Kelly and Joanne, the plot follows a trail that leads back to a scene of carnage where both child and prostitute have played a part in the brutal stabbing of a man.

But this is no ordinary man who has been stabbed, (who would have thought that Golly from Monarch of the Glen could play such a gross character so well!) for starters he has a liking for little girls, he also has a son Stuart, played with delicious violence by Sam Spruell who is a violent gangster and who wants some answers and he wants them now so the Kelly and Joanne are on the run but they have no real idea what they can do to ensure their safety so they leg it to Brighton and in doing so forge a relationship that will bind them together through the most terrible of times that have yet to come.

Hunted down by Kelly's psychotic and cowardly pimp Derek on behalf of Stuart, you know it is only a matter of time before Kelly and Joanne are captured, stuffed in the boot of a car and made to come face to face with Stuart in a remote field were Derek and his friend are made to dig a grave which at first we all think is for Joanne and Kelly.
What happens next is as shocking as it is exhilarating and it is well worth seeing just for the end ten minutes of the movie.

With a cracking soundtrack, a small budget, and lots of good acting from everyone, along with a lot bad language, hard hitting violence and lashings of blood, London to Brighton is quite simply a gem of a movie that gives one hell of a sting in the tale and a surprisingly feel good ending that is not so unbelievable as you'd think.

This is one Brit-Flick that packs one hell of a wallop and it stands up there with the likes of Gypo, This is England and of course the much under-rated Goodbye Charlie Bright.