THE TIMES

Awkward British, low-budget film with signs of promise.

Dark Summer, the week's second film made in Britain, is a different kettle of fish. It was shot on the streets and shores of Merseyside over four years at a final cost of some Pound 40,000 a sum that would scarcely pay for De Niro's make-up consultant or personal trainer.

If Dark Summer was the masterpiece of the week I could spiral off into a nice polemic about Hollywood money versus British imagination. Unfortunately, Charles Teton's first feature is too awkward and flimsy to fit the bill. An experienced cameraman, Teton wears his art on his sleeve, and relies heavily on word less shots to convey his skeletal story about two young people's thwarted relationship. Steam gushes from industrial structures. The sky glowers. The pregnant heroine, newly hitched to an amateur boxer, prepares the nursery with one white undercoat, and a yellow topcoat. Alas, it takes more than pretty images to generate a narrative. Perhaps aware of his own limitations and the inexperience of actors Joeline Garner Joel and Steve Ako, Teton stays aloof from the drama. Even the plot's pivot, a miscarriage, is positioned off screen. Although blissfully short, and peppered with foot tapping reggae, Dark Summer is unsatisfactory. But we must look to the future, and Teton deserves to have one.

Geoff Brown