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Contains moderate sex and language.Inspired by the British 'New Wave' films of the late 50s and early 60s, this is a timidly unimaginative adaptation of John Braine's novel by writer/director Steven Woodcock. A filmmaker of the calibre of Fassbinder or Almod贸var might have been able to illuminate this melodrama of a man torn between religious and family loyalties and his sexual desires. Relying on a cast of television stalwarts and a visual style bereft of any cinematic sensibility, The Jealous God makes for disappointingly mediocre big-screen fare.
Early on in The Jealous God Vincent (Cutting It's Jason Merrells) and his new girlfriend Laura (Miranda Carty) go to the cinema to watch Room At The Top, which was also based on a Braine book. The problem with this piece of intertextual referencing is that even a brief clip of Laurence Harvey's anti-hero highlights the glaring inadequacies of The Jealous God. Whereas the original kitchen-sink dramas were pioneering in the way they explored northern working-class lives, this effort fails to provide a fresh perspective on its period setting or to achieve any degree of emotional intensity.
"OBTRUSIVE SCORE AND HEAVY-HANDED CLOSE-UPS"
In fact a strain of campness emerges, which undercuts the seriousness of Vincent's spiritual predicaments: check out his character's snugly fetching sky-blue polo necks or the bitchy asides of his devout, possessive mother (Marcia Warren). With its obtrusive score and heavy-handed close-ups of religious icons, this isn't a film that trusts an audience to think for itself: the mystery is how in a crowded marketplace it's gained a big-screen release.
